


Green Moon

by pinkolifant



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2018-11-07 18:43:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 73,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11064897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkolifant/pseuds/pinkolifant
Summary: SanSan in space.And the olifant's take on perhaps the most common topic in fanfiction written by women for women )) Guess which one!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ten chapters or so. I usually end up with a bit more than planned, especially when I write without a firm structure in mind as is the case here.

 

She was struggling to slither through the extremely narrow crawlway under the floor of the high-security prison on the man-made satellite above the First Planet. The tube contained heating pipes and… and other installations… those she shouldn’t touch, flashing orange and green, to indicate their correct functioning.

Too many different lights frightened her, and she didn't understand their meaning.

It was impossible to learn in one night the details about her father’s duties she’d ignored in a lifetime. His annotated Guide to the prison, always at his bedside table, claimed that every appliance was accessible for maintenance or repair. Sansa imagined that engineers entered through the hatch nearest to the problem, though in practice she had no clue. Having gone through the Guide very rapidly on the sly, while both her parents hosted some important dinner, Sansa didn't remember half of what it said.

_ Very many complicated things. _

Surely the staff never used this way to cross the prison from one end to another as she was doing now. Her discomfort was extreme. The lack of air exacerbated the sensation of sheer impossibility and doom in her.

_ I’ll never make it. _

_ I should go home. _

Her throat hurt, her stomach cramped, tied in a knot. 

She should have used the ventilation tube, above the ceiling, but Arya insisted floor was safer. For once, Sansa believed her sister, wishing she’d done it before, when she had screamed to her face that Joffrey was vile.

_ Claustrophobia is the fear of being enclosed in a small space. _

_ There’s no escape. _

If she became stuck and unable to return, more crimes would be added to the one she was already guilty of. More dishonour and shame to her family.

The need to establish the truth motivated her to continue her deranged quest rather than melt into tears.

Either way, it wouldn’t take much longer. 

The stale air in the pipelines was limited to one hour after unsolicited intrusion. After that, if she wasn't back to the hangar, she’d begin to choke and faint. The sensors would react to the weight of her immobile body and alert the guards to her presence… she’d be found and her father alerted… before she died from asphyxiation…. or so she hoped…

Claustrophobia wasn't the only fear Sansa suffered from. 

She was afraid of everything.

Or almost anything outside the high walls of her family house, and quite a few things within, including her beloved siblings when they decided to tease her.

If only she had been prudent and frightful in every moment of her life! Then she wouldn't be here, but resting safely in her room, choosing a dress to wear on an outing with Jeyne, or to accompany Joffrey on some great event, where he would exhibit wisdom and leadership.

_ Just a little bit more to go. _

Her gown became stuck on a valve. She panicked, nearly ripping the expensive green fabric in a futile attempt to extricate herself. In hindsight, wearing a jumpsuit would have been preferable. But Sansa felt uneasy in the stretchy, hyper-tight garment, adhering to the superfluous curves of her body. The only one she had was dark red, almost brown. She’d ordered it from the inter-planetary network hoping to please Joffrey. He thought of grey, green and blue as too dull, and she considered his favourite rich red and gold too flashy… Especially on her skin… they made her look too pale…

Her intermediate choice had proven to be a poor one. 

_ Provocative. Vulgar. _

It was entirely  _ her _ fault that Joff had misunderstood… She’d never learn how to act and look  _ classy _ like his mother, no matter how hard she tried. She should have had chosen grey, tied and covered her hair, not to attract undue attention.

_ It doesn't matter now, does it? _

_ My life is over… _

Later, Joffrey wouldn’t listen when she’d explained she’d only worn the offensive garment during the inter-planetary travel, for which a jumpsuit was recommended for safety reasons. Even her mother had donned a pretty blue one.

Her first and last long journey in deep space had occurred only a moon-turn ago, when she was still a respectable young woman, about to be married to the son of the Supreme Governor on the Ninth Planet.

She’d returned home in shame, crying bitter tears.

Sansa breathed deeply to calm down her racing heart, managing to detach her gown from the offending pipe without ripping it off.

She could… Prisoners couldn’t see her in the dark, could they? Even if they stared at the tiny holes in the steel grid on the floor very intensively, which people rarely did.

Only sinners like Sansa had to look down in public.

She still had half an hour of air left.

Decisively, she took the gown off. This was only done for sleeping, and her inbred sense of chastity disapproved.  _ I'll dress again when I go back,  _ she swore.

After folding it carefully, and leaving it aside, she crawled on in her underwear; skin-coloured opaque tights that also covered her feet, and a dark brown long sleeved T-shirt.  _ A jumpsuit. A cottony one. _

She was much faster now.

Margaery, who slept in soft silks in the middle of winter, always laughed at Sansa for her utmost austerity of attire. Sansa remembered this, trying hard to feel indifferent about the necessity to disrobe and failing instantly. Despite the simplicity of her undergarments, the urgency and secrecy of her errand, she felt unpleasantly exposed.

But, she was almost there.

With the prisoners.

These were the last two… The others, those she had seen already… maybe some of them would do… but they… they… she didn’t know. She didn’t dare. The one with white and red hair was handsome but also… dangerous… Another appeared huge and cruel, missing a nose. Then there was the one who  _ hissed… _

Sansa shivered.

Maybe one of these two here would be better.

She had to risk picking one or live forever with her shame. But if she chose a cruel one, an evil one… what would he do to her? And what crime would she commit against the society by redeeming a man who deserved the pain of death?

_ They all deserve it, Sansa. Or they wouldn’t be here. _

It was just like her younger bookish self to dream that there was one convict who didn’t, who was here by mistake and not by his own doing. A man worth saving, and not only a means to fulfil her intention to find out the truth for herself, and perhaps restore honour to her family.

_ It’s unfair. I should have been allowed to speak. I should. _

It was the first time Sansa challenged the established order of the Seven Planets. Even the name of her home star system, normal until the tragic day of her shame, now seemed... plain wrong. Even little children knew that there were  _ nine  _ planets in the system, and the Green Moon; turning around the mighty sun of R'hllor.

According to the plan of the prison Bran and Arya had procured for her,  _ borrowing _ it from Father ( _ stealing,  _ she chastised inwardly both her siblings and herself, for she’d asked them to sin), she should turn left now.

_ No _ .  _ Right _ .

She didn't know anymore. Everything was blurred, lights faint; blue, purple, orange and green. All colours merged into one, all sounds were reduced to the pounding of her heart. Having done her best to learn the map by heart, she’d entirely forgotten it in her hour of need.

Blue lights twinkled cheerfully above her head.  _ Is it… alarm?  _ Was her shuttle discovered in the hangar for landing?

Such a terrible night in the prison run by her poor Father, at the mercy of her nerves…

She veered left.

This section was the end of the death row. 

_ They’ll die tomorrow. _

She shouldn't be here! Though it mattered little, she supposed, being already dishonoured in the eyes of the world. And unless there would be a way to prove everyone wrong, she could be anywhere; her reputation tarnished beyond redemption. She only hadn't been put to beg in the streets or deported to the Green Moon because her Father was Governor and wouldn't renounce his child no matter what she had done… The long years of service to the realm made his dissension tolerable, and her future secure - as long as he lived. When he died, her brothers might have to repudiate her to inherit his claim...

_ Yes. _

_ I’m here. _

The young man in black. He'd be her choice. She remembered seeing when her father’s men had brought him to judgment for desertion, doe-eyed, knowing the just punishment for his cowardice. From below, he looked so young and innocent. Studying his face features, Sansa strove to be confident. This one… he wouldn’t hurt her. She wondered if he would… let her stay intact... in exchange for his life, and how it would be to live with him on the Green Moon forever.

_ Not nice. _

_ Appalling. _

But she would know the truth she sought… 

She was about to retreat with a semblance of satisfaction in her heart when she saw the other one, in the last cell. More of a hairy, huge mammoth than a man. Older than her, though still much younger than her father. Pacing his cell all of the sudden, attracting her eye. Wild. Hitting the wall and ignoring the pain of the strong electric shock the gesture must have given him…

There was no escape.

_ As ugly as the gossips say he is. Maybe more. _

Half of his face was melted by a plasma explosion or an eruption of lava on the Sixth Planet. Stories varied. To Sansa, his face looked like charred wood in the old-fashioned hearth of her parents.

_ Would he calm down if… if I spoke to him kindly? _

He probably wouldn’t, she concluded. There was nothing gentle in his manners.

She also reminded herself this was the one who’d brutally killed his own brother! A much greater and more violent crime than desertion from the defences of the First Planet the young man in black was guilty of… She wondered how they would execute this restless man… The magistrates in their wisdom made the punishment fit the crime. She wouldn’t be there to see it. She’d be either in the streets for defying all requirements of propriety, or on her way to the Green Moon…

The ugly man looked  _ down _ , through the minuscule holes of the metal grid on the floor. Her fear flared, shaking her to the core. She was terrified. His eyes were like that molten lava or burning plasma that must have ruined his face; wild, mad and violent.

He shouldn’t be able to see her! He was several steps away, at the other end of his cell! But she felt as if he could and did, his gaze piercing the floor like those... like x-rays from distant past… that both revealed and fatally irradiated the body until it self-destroyed. So unlike the harmless, advanced body-scanners used by the Order of the Maesters, who were so much more competent than the old doctors…

Retreating on the wings of fresh fear was so much faster than reaching the last two prisoners. Thankfully, the shuttle was where she left it.

Women were not allowed to pilot spacecraft. This was reserved for men. Yet all noble ladies  _ learned _ , in case of an absolute emergency, defined in detail by law. Sansa hated it because it was decidedly unwomanly, but partook in the necessary lessons. She was more than competent, but not as good as Arya… who enjoyed flying under the carefully elaborated pretence of urgency… stealing father’s small wolflike shuttle whenever she could… Her brothers were the same, but they would be men one day, so it was natural.

All buttons in the shuttle looked the same. She was blinded, paralysed, unable to remember what to do to take off. In addition, she thought she could hear  _ breathing  _ in the hangar just outside. 

Long and raspy.

_ It can't be true! _

He couldn't have followed her!

Or perhaps he could! There was still air in the pipes for good twenty minutes after her intrusion, and he looked strong enough to open one of the hatches with bare hands…

Forcing herself to look at the display she had to control in order to  _ leave,  _ she recalled that purple wasn’t a good colour, and green very dangerous, like the Green Moon, something with cutting the life support to the cockpit. The colour of the summer sky must be good… The prettiest of all shades of blue... She pulled a few switches, pressed buttons. Dark blue lights buzzed on the display… confirming the success of her actions, saying something about the target?

_ What have I done? _

She pressed another set of commands on an impulse, hoping she remembered her training by heart. The craft beeped, agitated, rotated, gaining speed. First on wheels, then in the air, taking off… She whooped when she cleared the doors of the hangar, soaring into the orbit, returning to the First Planet.

She would fast and pray until morning came.

Xxxxxxx

There was a  _ rat _ in the pipe below.

Or maybe Gregor’s ghost wanted to see how Sandor fared on the eve of his execution, to have a good laugh.

On a second thought, the rodent was rather long… 

Ugly purple lights of the cell illuminated a reddish hue  _ under _ the floor in the far corner of his cell. He darted towards it, removing the steel plate with bare hands, pushing himself forcefully under the floor.

There weren’t any transports in the prison, no means to run, so he hadn’t bothered with useless vandalism before.

But if this mouse was human, they'd come somehow to the prison colony.

_ A ship,  _ he thought with longing.

If only he had been smaller! He’d be faster, catching up. Clambering through, panting, breaking valves and pipes as he went, he became entangled in a bundle of soft green silk. He shook it off, angry, wasting time. Ploughing on, he broke several security sensors and was hit by corresponding electric shocks. They were nothing to him.

His tolerance of pain was much  _ larger  _ than average _. _

Since…

He refused to remember.

Laughing raucously, he scrambled on.

_ Silk, ha? _

He'd be able to take a transport from a  _ woman _ , despite being drunk as hell and crawling on all fours. Or was it fives?

What did a woman do here? And old law,  _ never _ applied, came to mind… From the time he was still schooled. He chortled.  _ Right, sure, as if some girl would do it for you. _

Maybe the young man in black in the cell next to his had chance for  _ that _ , if he had an innocent sweetheart somewhere… But if he did, probably she wasn’t  _ that _ innocent...

His own transport was irreparably lost in the wilderness of the First Planet.

He squeezed himself out of the buggering tube and into the hangar.

The intruder couldn’t fly or pilot. He was almost at the hatch to enter the little ship, when all lights went on and the weapons were aimed at him, flashing dangerously blue like old glass swords.

The window of the main viewer was dark, and he couldn’t see her, more and more convinced it was  _ her,  _ though in all fairness he'd seen men dressed in silk…

He wished she’d stayed, and just  _ talked _ to him for the duration of the night, told him why she came, what she wanted… rolling sharply to a side to avoid laser fire… That would be too much of a shock…

Moments later, he wondered why he didn’t let those lasers kill him… It would have been a mercy… Swift death...

But the little shuttle left…

_ Wolf-shaped… _

_ A rarity... _

And he had nowhere to go except back to his cell; his only chance of escape gone.

The dress was still in the pipeline. He caressed it, felt like an idiot. Wasn't there an ancient story where a handsome bugger found a shoe of the girl he fancied after she'd run away? And then she turned into a pumpkin? Or was it a rat?

Mouse?

_ Right… _

He returned to the bucket with synthetic brandy in his cell. His last wish. It tasted of plastic, but it would numb him as good as the naturally brewed addictive poison smuggled into the Seven Planets from the Green Moon. They wouldn't give him a proper bottle, fearing he'd use it as a weapon when they came to get him.

_ Right. _

_ Buggering idiots. _

_ He  _ was a weapon and he could fabricate plenty from the prison walls, but he'd still have no means to escape…

He could only cowardly hasten his death…

He sank to the ground, defeated, pushing the bucket away.

Shivering, he struggled not to think. He’d killed Gregor, yes, knowing he'd be caught and die for it.

For breaking a panoply of laws of gods and men on the buggering, stupidly  _ religious _ First Planet, where he’d finally caught up with his sweet, late brother.

In a bout of useless madness and absence of anything better to do, he folded the pretty gown into his empty bag, so that no one could find it when he was gone and trace it to the woman he'd chased. His armour and sword had been confiscated, and his bag, considered a personal belonging, would share his destiny like his clothing. 

Thoughtlessly, he brought the pile of silk his rucksack now contained to his burned nose, inhaling. His sense of smell was half-ruined, like his face. Very little remained. Yet this soft scent was so very fine and novel that it brought him joy.

Who knew? It wasn’t like him to hope, but he still caught himself in the useless longing.

_ And why not? _

With Gregor dead, perhaps life was possible.

Truth be told, he hadn’t expected the sentence pronounced by the magistrates in their great  _ wisdom _ . A beheading would suffice, he would have thought. Swift and final.

_ No. Not that lucky. _

He wondered morbidly if he'd be able to stand it with a semblance of decency and courage, until he choked on smoke or passed out from inhuman pain, or if he'd dissolve in tears like the boy he once was.

Tomorrow, he'd be burned alive.

 


	2. Chapter 2

When a squad of the First Planet mountain clan troopers shoved the prisoners into the transport, the handsome gnat in black passed out from fear.

Chained to a chair, Sandor was at a loss to understand the agitation caused by the pitiful display of the youth's weakness.

A maester came immediately, scanning the coward. The sensors beeped cheerfully, registering their confusion, from green to blue and back. Sandor had never seen a similar succession of light signals. _A code of some kind. For what?_

Familiar black bags immediately dropped from the ceiling. The master skillfully fitted in the prisoner, and then pulled the second one over his head, zipping it on the inside.

 _How disciplined._ Sandor thought dryly of the old man's dedication.

They'd have air for half an hour in the special isolating plastic fibre. If the transport didn't reach the safe quarantine zone on the First Planet in that time, well…

_Tough luck._

Sandor looked at the silent sensors above him. He was healthy as a fish in Lannisport and didn't need a quarantine. Or rather, his luck was predictably worse - suffocating or succumbing to a disease would be much better than burning. The bag would release a sleep inducing agent when the patient ran out of air.

_A humane execution._

Is that how they call it on First Planet?

On his native Third Planet they called it the death penalty.

He hadn't been there since his twelfth birthday.

A bearded mountain clan trooper peeked in. "Fancy a drink?" he asked in a square accent from the most ancient planet of all.

It was music for Sandor's ears. The soldier had the genuine product, the poison from the Green Moon, in two tiny crystal bottles.

"Could I have both?" he wondered avidly.

The man gave him a look filled with pity, and then nodded, pouring the contents in Sandor's big mouth.

Smart enough not to open his chains.

Sandor had to strive with all his heart against the urge to break them and strangulate his benefactor.

_There is no escape._

There were four sets of locked doors between him and the cockpit, and it was another _wolf_ ship, a design he wasn't familiar with, and which shouldn't exist, according to the Supreme Governor's registry of known spaceworthy vessels on the Seven Planets.

He'd kill them all if he saw a way out in the time he had left. _I'll have more than the idiot in the black bag will ever have if our flight is delayed._

He'd always thought he wouldn't care about his own life after doing for Gregor, but now had to admit that he'd been lying to himself.

The trooper was safely out, not knowing the peril he was in.

Sandor sharpened his senses, waiting for his opportunity. What, as much as he could with the numbing poison wrecking pleasant havoc in his veins.

The flight lasted for exactly 27 minutes and 26 seconds.

Instead of an open place in some haunted forest, with a seven foot tall stake for burning, that Sandor imagined for some reason as a place where he'd die, he was _sedated_ by a gaseous agent on top of his drunken state, and transported to a familiar tall palace, square and grey, to a spacious room with high ceiling where the magistrates had judged him for his crimes.

He was left alone in it, unchained, able to pace back and forth.

_There is no way out._

So what if he'd stabbed Gregor multiple times? No one could have killed his brother in one slash of a laser sword. And a gun just wouldn't give him the same level of satisfaction, of striking back. Anyone could shoot anyone from a distance, with the right weapon. _Like the woman last night._

He thought about smelling his backpack, but decided against it. He was alone in an empty tribunal, but invisible eyes monitored his every movement. He wondered if the unknown watchers had looks of pity on their faces and if some of them were women.

He wished for true solitude.

_For some bloody privacy._

Despite that normally he didn't care who was or wasn't watching him.

Two hours passed, longer than lifetime; his execution delayed beyond the renowned custom of punctuality on the First Planet. Where he was from, everything was a little late. Here, the occurrence was extraordinary.

He was becoming sober and very angry.

Then, he smelled it. Behind one of the walls. The perfume from his bag. His head swam with mad hope. He might very well be the only one left to die that day.

If some ugly peasant girl was so desperate that she would take a husband from under the henchman's axe, or, in his case, from the stake, perhaps she would overlook his face and his so-called crime, and appreciate the content of his pants.

He approached her as much as he was able to, not completely certain where the scent came from with his damaged sense of smell.

A whisper left his mouth on its own, unstoppable. "Please don't let them burn me," he said, deserving every look of pity he'd gotten in his life.

He tried to justify his weakness to himself. A double fill of drink and sedatives could mess up with the man's mind, make him say all kind of crap.

_Bullshit._

He said it because he was afraid. As simple as that.

Then, angry and bitter, he hit the wall with his fists, and once more, and more, until he punched a hole in a normally unbreakable surface and his knuckles were bleeding.

The sight of blood was welcome, calming him.

The electric shocks didn't tardy. He was subdued and chained by robot soldiers, with increased strength settings. The free pacing through the courtroom was over. Perhaps those were the last steps he'd made on his own. He wondered if the enhanced robots could subdue Gregor, or only him.

_Always the little brother._

Wrathful and vanquished, he sank into brooding silence.

Xxxxxxxx

Sansa faced the magistrates with her heart in her throat, lacking the courage to continue.

Her parents would discover soon that she wasn't in her bed at dawn, as she well should be.

The President of the Grand Jury was from her planet, Honourable Wyman Manderly. The senior member, Honourable Kevan Lannister, came from the Third Planet, the homeland of both the victim and the criminal. And the junior member, Honourable Petyr Baelish, hailed from the lands near Fifth Planet, her mother's childhood home.

When she made her demand, Baelish was the first one to speak. "You do understand that your action is pointless, child, do you not?" he asked with utmost concern. "You will be punished for delaying justice. Your condition of… of impurity has been confirmed by a man."

Men didn't lie, Sansa knew. They were honest and strong. Only women could commit the sin of withholding the truth in their imperfection and weakness, and needed men to protect them from themselves. As a consequence, a man's word about their honour was final and irrefutable. _Why did I ever agree to be alone with Joffrey?_

"The law gives me this right, in this particular case," she whispered, looking down, feeling naked, though she wore four gowns one over another and a long grey cloak. She wouldn't think what would happen to her when father's guards inevitably found the dress she'd forgotten in the prison and brought it to the magistrates.

Then she would be judged as a lady of ill repute, not only a sinner.

"The lady is right," Manderly said curtly.

"But it will only increase her shame and expose her further," Lannister sided with Baelish. "Her pledge and the results of the independent verification have to be made public in this case. What can she hope to achieve? Only a maiden can save a man from the pain of death, and her honour has to be intact. A painful and unnecessary procedure in this case, since the results are well known. My nephew regrets his action, but he cannot take it back. He was seduced by her. A woman is a temptation. It is well known."

Verification was what Sansa wanted, the reason she was committing this act of insanity. But painful? Sansa thought the maesters would use a scanner for that.

"I shall message her mother," Baelish said. "Let us end this, get the girl home."

"But she did express her pledge before the three of us," Lannister complained, "the law says-"

"Surely the law can be interpreted wisely," Baelish commented.

Sansa's poor mood plummeted further. _Did I misunderstand the law? Am I stupid as Joffrey said?_

"The letter of the law is rather strict on the First Planet in this matter, I have to acknowledge," Manderly said. "A request like this cannot be denied. Women lack superior reason. The greenseers have long established that their irrational, emotional decisions can sometimes be inspired by the old gods. The verification has to take place immediately."

"In the rest of the Seven Planets," Baelish ululated, "the necessary check isn't performed by greenseers, but by a septa. I so happen to know-"

"I have a septa," Sansa interrupted proudly. "She has taught me all I know."

"Excellent," Lord Lannister agreed with her proposal, nodding enthusiastically. "Let us put this disagreeable matter behind us," he gave her a look of depreciation, and Sansa regretted having spoken.

Yet Septa Mordane was equal to any other septa in the Seven Planets. The law was clear on that as well. She was authorised to verify a maiden's honour and taught the procedure she should perform.

Father burst into the tribunal room with a cold expression on his face. "I'm the Governor, honourable magistrates. I should have been told immediately about the news in this process."

"Your daughter spoke so candidly," Baelish declared. "She was done speaking in one breath. Lord Manderly assures us there is nothing we can do."

"I insist in being present," the Governor, and not her father, ended all conversation.

Sansa was happy that no one expected another word from her.

The greenseer's check didn't hurt. It didn't involve the scanner either. He gave Sansa a _look_ and immediately addressed her father. "Whoever told you she wasn't innocent is a liar."

Septa Mordane _hurt_ her, pushing gnarled fingers under her gowns into her most private place that she wasn't supposed to show to anyone.

When the painful procedure was over, septa spoke more candidly than Sansa. "She can't be intact, my lord, but I swear that she is. I do not understand-"

"But I do," Father cut her sentence in half. "Others take me!" he cursed.

Sansa had never heard him pronounce such terrible blasphemy before.

"Go out and tell them she's innocent!" he commanded the septa.

When they were left alone, Father hugged Sansa. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Women should not speak about these matters, nor contradict a man's word about their condition, which is always true," Sansa parroted what she was taught.

"But you _knew_ that he lied!"

She had never seen her father that upset.

"I agreed to be alone with him, Father," Sansa confessed.

"And then?"

It was improper of her to continue talking, to contradict the truth told by a man about her.

But an independent verification has just overturned that so-called truth, so maybe she could open her mouth as well.

Joffrey had never touched or seen those parts of her.

"He put his finger on my right cheek and caressed it, from ear to neck," she confessed her sin in full, blushing. "I was so happy!" she blurted. "I loved him!" she exclaimed. "Then he spoke to his lady Mother and gave testimony about my dishonour." That memory hurt and stang.

Father laughed and cried at the same time. "I need to see Maester Luwin," he muttered. "Hold on. There has to be a legal way to release you from your vow to marry that prisoner."

Sansa hadn't thought that far _yet._

Not since she came to the tribunal after having prayed and fasted the whole night, and Honourable Wyman Manderly informed her in a private audience, before facing the entire Jury, that there was only one prisoner left she could choose today. The young, sad one she'd wanted had turned so sick overnight that he might die on his own, his execution delayed indefinitely.

Now, a disconcerting truth sank in.

She had read about the old law in great detail, and knew that her plea was irreversible.

From one of the screens in the examination room where her father left her, she suddenly heard upset voices from the tribunal chamber.

"Honourable Lord Lannister," Father said coldly, "this boy ought to be taken to court for _lying._ He's a shame to all men. I shall write to the Supreme Governor and implore his decision on this matter."

"He'll only merit a minor reprimand, I fear," Baelish said. "His noble mother had raised him in utmost innocence and propriety. He probably believed he was telling the truth, not understanding the exact lengths he should have gone into in order to dishonour your daughter. I wouldn't bother in your place."

"Maybe," father replied dismissively, storming out of the courtroom.

_So he didn't know what it meant… what we did… just like I didn't… We were both innocent._

Somehow, this excuse didn't matter. Maybe Joffrey could have asked another man what dishonour meant before giving testimony about her fall. Men were allowed to speak of those things, unlike women. His father, the Supreme Governor, could have explained it to him.

Lights went dark in the examination room before twinkling red, announcing visitors. Chains surged from the sides of the chair she was seated on, wrapping her wrists, preventing her from running away.

Not that she had any strength for it, after her night and her morning, and not having eaten in 24 hours.

 _You have five minutes,_ a metallic voice communicated from the computer.

Sansa felt cold sweat under her four gowns.

Her marriage to the prisoner… the preparations were already starting. Five minutes of compulsory courting on the first day.

Her father's newest robots ushered him in.

Arya would have loved to be in her place to study them and see how they worked.

Sansa knew she was in the darkness. The former prisoner, her soon-to-be husband, couldn't see her. Her newly reestablished honour would be preserved in this way. He wouldn't put his eyes on her until the day they were married.

She saw him well, dressed in fluorescent yellow the death row prisoners were obliged to wear for the execution, with a black bag on his back.

His only belonging.

He _stank,_ ruining her carefully crafted illusion that this could end well. Drunk, or drugged, or both.

He'd never caress her as tenderly as Joffrey.

But he had begged her not to let him burn and this did something to her soul. Last night, when she didn't pray, and wishing to forget she was fasting, Sansa had dug out records about his crime from her hand computer.

By rights, they should have condemned him to multiple _stabbing_ to death. But such penalty did not exist on the First Planet, so the only other official form of capital punishment other than clean beheading had been chosen.

Burning was used thousands of years ago for the greenseers who had joined evil sorcerers, and who couldn't have been killed by a sword. In the time that blades were still made of steel, and not of lasers. It hadn't been in use since.

Sansa's sense of justice rebelled against this decision despite that this man deserved death. Which man that killed his own brother wouldn't?

"Are you missing a leg?" he insulted her, breaking the silence.

She was stunned by it. She, who always had a good answer for everything, didn't know what to say. There was no fitting phrase for this conversation.

"And if I did," her voice was tremulous, but her thought unusually daring, "would you rather burn?"

"I'd rather fuck an ugly crone who lived like a septa all her life than burn, and you know it very well," he spat out. "You've heard me asking for help. Don't lie to me that you didn't."

 _Ugly?_ Sansa was beautiful, everyone said that. Only Joffrey's mother insisted she had plenty of work to do if she wished to develop and enhance her natural charm.

She didn't understand what he would do to an ugly old woman and had no courage to ask. It must have been one of the words women were not taught nor allowed to use.

Something criminal.

Or… _shameful._

What would he do to her?

She looked at his wrists that should have been chained, like hers.

He had _broken_ the chains in his agitation.

Arya and Bran had assured her this was impossible before she attempted her nightly flight to the high security prison.

He could have jumped at her, broken a screen, stabbed her multiple times with a shard of glass, dishonoured her before the holy marriage gave him this right, and her that duty.

He wasn't a boy. He probably didn't need anyone to tell him how to shame a woman.

She stared at him for two and a half minutes and he never did any such thing, despite that his fists clenched, and she knew that he _knew_ his hands were free...

"You could run away," she pointed out. Her voice echoed in the dark; grown-up and calm, strange to her ears. "Steal a transport."

"Maybe," he conceded. "And be hunted. Or I could get a free transport and a wife to accompany me to the Green Moon in five days. Why should I take any risks?"

This was disappointing. Somehow, she'd begun to imagine him as a man willing to take them.

The remaining minute passed in unfriendly silence.

Then, the robots took him away under the merciless flashing of red lights, announcing the end of their first courting period.

Tomorrow she should tell him her name. She'd read his in the inter-planetary network the night before, and it seemed that the magistrates had forgotten to inform him of her identity.

Her chains opened with a mechanic click, liberating her wrists. She went to sit to _his_ chair, suddenly restless and afraid of everything, as was her custom, succumbing under the weight of what she had done.

Maybe Father will find a way out.

She proved that she'd never brought shame to her family, but at the same time she gave herself to a common criminal and a life in exile.

Her tears were warm, burning her cheeks. She sat on something. _His bag._ She opened it in the dark. She didn't need lights to know its content.

Her gown from yesterday!

He'd forgotten it here… or brought it back on purpose.

Keeping her secret, instead of giving testimony of her crime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this little something ))


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured that this will probably be more than 10 chs since I didn't even manage to get them to the Green Moon in 3 chs as I intended...
> 
> I'll try to keep it relatively short and update relatively fast
> 
> Unbetaed, unpolished, sorry for the grammar stuff you may find.
> 
> Thanks for reading.

**Three**

The light was white and merciless; his cell smaller and less comfortable than in the high security prison.

 _And far less secure,_ he thought, arrogant and confident.

He wasn’t chained, but they increased the voltage in the walls. If he hit it hard, he’d have to sit down for a minute to weather the shocks. They also gave him all synthetic liquor he wanted. He could love it here.

Stay here forever.

It was morning of a new day and he was alive.

If only he was free.

_Three more days._

Behind a large glass, in a viewing chamber adjacent to his new lodging, a richly dressed couple appeared, older than him by some ten years. The woman wore an old fashioned headdress, high and tower-like, hiding her hair. Her eyes were strikingly blue on a pale face, and she was very beautiful.

The man’s eyes were cold and grey. Tall, though not excessively, he wasn’t impressed by Sandor’s monstrous face or stature, and didn’t lose any time on courtesies. “Why did you kill your brother?” he fired the question faster than a laser gun.

Sandor spat on the pristinely clean floor, not saying a word.

He didn’t own answers to anyone.

“He’s drunk, Ned,” the woman stated the truth of the matter, pinching her nose.

“And Maester Luwin is still quarantined,” the man replied dryly. He wanted to say more, hesitated. His knuckles were pale, and Sandor saw clearly the temptation to _break_ things he was so familiar with.

The man continued, ignoring Sandor squarely. “Kevan suddenly wants them married sooner. You’ve seen _him,_ ” he stared Sandor down. “He doesn’t give a damn about anything. And who would in his place? He’s off the hook, isn’t he? It was a mistake to come here. Without Luwin, we’ll never find an honourable way out of this. I’ll get Ice-”

“Don’t!” the woman interrupted, grabbing his hand. “What good would such radical action do to anyone?”

“Sansa would be an honourable widow,” the man replied brusquely, storming out of the room.

The woman was calmer than the hunting snakes on the Second Planet. She fixated Sandor with utmost calm, before looking down at her feet as customs dictated she should do in a presence of an unknown man.

As a convicted murderer, Sandor didn’t deserve niceties. This woman offered them freely. But she also showed her utmost contempt for him by the frosty manner of their execution.

_Sansa?_

A terrible thought crossed his drunk mind.

_How old is she then? Fifteen? These two can’t be forty years old._

She had to be very young.

Why did he imagine an older woman?

He was well aware there was another reason besides him being ugly like seven hells, and less likely to attract _girls,_ but he wouldn’t remember it now. If he did, he’d cry, and he’d rather break walls or bones.

“You’re her mother?” he slurred.

His lady visitor nodded, lifting her eyes, measuring Sandor from tip to toe like a customer examining a new robot for her household, in the atelier of a talented artificial life designer.

“Why did you kill your brother?” She methodically repeated her husband’s question.

“Why are you asking? You fear I’ll do for your daughter as well?” he raged. “Well, guess what, lady, I might or I might not. Who’s to tell me what to do on the Green Moon? I hear it’s not the most hospitable place.”

He should be able to survive it. He survived Gregor. He wasn’t afraid.

“The gods who created us all,” the lady informed dryly.

“What gods?” he cackled evilly, not caring. “If there were any, your daughter wouldn’t be marrying _me_.”

_It’s irreversible, isn’t it? A maiden’s plea for a life of a prisoner? They can’t do anything, can they?_

_Short of killing me…_

_Which would be a heinous crime, right?_

_So dishonourable… to question the mighty will of the gods…_

He snorted loudly and derisively.

His education took place a long time ago, and laws and customs of different planets in the realm were never his favourite. Yet he was ridiculously sure he’d gotten this one right.

“Why did your daughter come forward to save _me_ ?” he blurted a question of his own, one that wouldn’t leave his mind be he drunk or sober. This _Sansa_ had seen him. _Twice._ Usually it was enough for women to stay as far from him as possible. _Except with..._ “And don’t give me the shit about the gods! What is it? She didn’t like the husband you picked for her? She wanted a bigger man?”

The lady straightened her spine, releasing a short, nervous breath that she wasn’t able to stifle as courtesy demanded.

“Ned’s right,” she solemnly declared. “You’re a boar.”

With that, she left.

On his planet, they’d use the word pig.

She was probably right.

Xxxxx

For the second compulsory courting session with her husband-to-be, Sansa wore the green gown he’d brought back for her from the high security prison. Four dresses she had on when she came to the tribunal to make her pledge lay neatly over the back of a chair. His bag was under it. She tied her hair in a knot wishing she had her favourite long transparent veil to cover it.

It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t see her. She’d be in the dark.

She could stand this time, behind the viewing glass, which would remain between them. _Unless he broke it like he did with the chains._

Against her will, shivers went down her spine.

Murderer or not, he didn’t turn her dress over to the magistrates. He didn’t feel compelled by his honour to give testimony of her transgression like Joffrey did. Though, strictly speaking, he didn’t lie. He’d just… stayed silent… not to be compelled by his honour to utter the truth that would harm her.

She didn’t know what to make of him and his actions.

Maybe he wanted to thank her. But then he could have just _said_ so instead of... _barking_ at her and bloodying his hands by breaking walls and chains.

She felt that she should thank him as well, but didn’t know how.

They were being _watched,_ their courting sessions recorded. It would be the same with their… She’d rather not think of that, not now. She still had three nights of solitude and chastity. She’d spend them praying.

She had to think of a way to thank him without mentioning her crime or his omission to the invisible watchers. Her heart beat faster in anticipation.

This time, she paid attention to his looks, wishing to ignore his scent that permeated the laser-proof glass. _Will he stink every day of the rest of our lives?_ His eyes were less stormy and his gait less frightening than she remembered it. His face was disfigured, he was extremely large and that was all.

She cleared her throat so that he could hear her.

“Sansa,” he addressed her, surprising her by knowing her name. “How old are you?” His words were strangely sober, unlike his smell.

 _Would he find me too old?_ When she was eleven, Sansa’s parents had agreed that the life path she’d chosen would never lead to marriage. That was before she met gallant Joffrey Baratheon, changed her mind, and _begged_ them to arrange it. Father and the Supreme Governor were friends, it shouldn’t have been so difficult!

“I’m nineteen,” she answered cautiously.

“Nineteen?” he sounded bewildered, his eyes acquiring the restlessness she expected from them. Now he was the man she met. He leaned his forehead on the glass. _So close._ The breaking of the light on his scars made him look like the last generation of robots Arya fancied before they were fully assembled in the factory.

Silence was metallic, heavy, charged with high voltage.

Sansa recoiled and sat on her bed in the dark, ashamed. _He’d want a thirteen year old. Freshly flowered. Someone like Arya._

“I’m twenty-nine,” he offered flatly.

She couldn’t decipher his reaction. What did he think of her age? Most girls were married by the age of fifteen and men around thirty.

Her parents were an exception, both seventeen when they were married. But this was only because her Mother was widowed, and Father married her in place of his late brother, to satisfy the demands of propriety.

There was more than duty or propriety between her parents now, Sansa knew. She’d never wanted what they shared for herself until she meet Joffrey.

“I…” She wanted to tell him her reasons to stay in her parents home until the beginning of the old age for women at thirty when she could-

“You what?” he barked. “You wish you could change your mind, don’t you?”

“I do,” she confessed. “But I can’t, can I? Could you _please_ stop being awful?”

They had three more minutes.

“What, shall I sing for you?” he was joking, she could tell.

She… accepted the game. “Yes,” she answered. “I’d love that.”

“Tough luck,” he replied viciously. “I _can’t_ sing _._ ”

“I could,” she offered very, very cautiously expecting another snarl.

The silence was… considerate… curious.

_Florian and Jonquil?_

She never liked that sinful song, but it wasn’t a forbidden one, and it could be a way to thank him. It certainly was a more jovial composition than the crystal clear hymns she adored.

But the bright lights in his part of the room turned dim. Then, they flashed red like blood, signalling that their time was over. The robots carried him out before she could say another word.

Xxxxxxxx

Hours later, after dinner, Mother came to comb her hair.

Father didn’t tardy, leaning against the main computer, his expression inscrutable. Sansa’s room at the tribunal was comfortable, with a soft bed, a wardrobe, a table and four chairs.

_But no windows…_

_A cell..._

Only parents could visit Sansa in her last days on her home planet. She’d never see her siblings again. No one from Seven Planets ever travelled to Green Moon.

_Well, the smugglers fly there all the time, according to Arya._

She’d see first hand, she supposed, if anyone visited and who it was.

In his habitual calm manner, Father examined one of the communication panels. With the speed Sansa had never seen in him, he _lifted_ a command button from the board with a closely cropped nail. After disconnecting a wire, he let the command slide back into place.

Then, he sank on a chair next to Sansa and supplicated, “Sansa, please forgive me.” He continued with passion, I’ll save you from this, I swear, if it costs me my life.”

 _Life?_ Sansa didn’t understand, “But, Father-

“Your father feels guilty for not demanding a verification of your condition after Joffrey’s testimony,” Mother announced bluntly.

“But a man’s word isn’t questioned for being true and-”

“Other men _can_ ask for proof or for an independent verification of an accusation in cases that concern them or their family member,” Father clarified nervously. “And the Governors can make queries about any case brought before them.”

Mother gave Father a reprimanding look, confirming the terrible truth Sansa had never been told. Probably only married women and septas were aware of this.

Sansa’s eyes filled with water. “But I thought that you believed I was innocent! Why else would you have kept me at home? Your unjustified _faith_ in me prompted my wish to discover… to learn what I have done. I wasn’t sure of the extent of my sin...”

Her world was crumbling down again. Her father had thought the worst of her just like Joffrey in his… innocence.

“ _I_ had my doubts about Joffrey’s testimony from the beginning, ” her mother reassured her lovingly.

At least _she_ believed in her.

“I told your father as much,” mother continued. “But he decided what to do as the head of our family. I accepted his decision.”

Father lowered his head deeper than Sansa had ever seen any woman do in sign of respect. “I should have believed in you as well, Sansa, I know that I should have. But what if what they said was true? What then? What would I have to do then? They would have _more_ arguments to force me to put you out in the street. And _that_ would never happen _again_ in my lifetime. Not in _my_ family-”

“Ned, hush,” mother interrupted, “this isn’t the place nor the time-”

“Time?!” father screamed. “We’re out of time!”

“He… the younger Clegane asked _why_ Sansa saved him,” Mother announced hesitantly. “Perhaps he isn’t entirely without honour. He has no record of previous convictions,” she paused. “If we exclude drunk-piloting.”

Father stood up like… like some _animal,_ and _hit_ the main computer panel hard with his fits.

Sansa startled.

Her Father… normally so calm… so composed… It was all her fault for falling in love with Joffrey.

“I suppose you’d find some virtue in the _older_ Clegane as well,” he muttered. “If it was _he_ about to marry our daughter.”

“That’s very cruel, Ned,” Mother shot back disrespectfully, freely, stepping beyond the limits wisely set for women. “I’d never think that and you know it. I was just trying to be objective in an ungrateful situation. It is hard, I know.”

Sansa didn’t understand anything anymore. Her head swam with new, disquieting, disconnected information. _This would never happen again in her family?_ She’d never heard of the shame like hers could have been in the past.

“What have I done to displease you, Father?” she whined and sobbed. “Was my behaviour as a daughter so disgraceful that you expected me to fall into dishonour?”

Father shook his head. “You’re the most perfect girl in existence,” he spoke truly.

_But then why? Why believe it? Why not ask for them to check if you were entitled to?_

Mother helped, her voice gentle like rain in spring. “Sansa, listen to me. You’re still _very_ young, though you are well past the first age for marriage. You fell in love with that boy. Love is strong. It makes us do actions we regret. The shame we cautioned you against all your life may be… not entirely unpleasant when you are in love.”

“I only regret forsaking my faith in you, Sansa,” father said solemnly.

Sansa wiped her eyes. Her heart hurt.

Father believed her guilty. And yet he couldn’t condemn her and repudiate her as he ought to have done, if she sinned for _love_. He didn’t put her into the streets, but continued caring for her. His love was strong. He didn’t regret his actions. He’d do it again.

She wished she’d been raised differently, to speak up her mind, instead of bowing her head.

But it was too late for that. Soon the red lights would flash. Her parents would have to leave or they would be imprisoned for obstruction of justice.

“Why did _you_ believe I was innocent?” she asked mother, needing to take all those truths with her to the Green Moon. She’d have a lifetime to consider them.

“I wasn’t sure,” mother confessed, “but I’m a married woman. I thought… I thought you would have looked different if it were true. Older. More and less proud at the same time. But you’re still my little girl.”

It was Mother’s turn to cry, her tears wetting Sansa’s freshly combed hair.

_Wait… Maester Luwin._

Maybe there was still an inkling of hope for them. Maybe she wouldn’t have to go into the self-imposed exile.

“Father,” Sansa inquired, “can’t Maester Luwin help? He knows every letter of the law.”

“I hoped so, Sansa, but he’s very ill. He’s in quarantine,” father explained guiltily.

Quarantine was often an antechamber of death. Many incurable diseases were brought from space travel and had to be contained.

Sansa’s heart sank. “So nothing can be done?”

“Oh yes it can,” father said.

“Ned-” mother looked very upset.

“You’ll see, Sansa,” father repeated darkly, restoring the command button he had made to malfunction into order, amidst lights flashing red and robots showing up to lead the visitors away. “Stay calm and have faith in me. I made a mistake once. I won’t do it again.”

When she was left alone, Sansa wished she could see Arya and ask questions about the Green Moon.

_Three more days._

Xxxxxxxx

To Sansa’s surprise, the robots brought _him_ back to her later in the evening, immediately after supper. She had left it untouched, praying, fasting.

Normally, he should have been escorted to see her only the day after.

The metal joints of the state-of-the-art humanoid machines clicked cheerfully, confirming their proper functioning. Sansa committed their features to memory… In case she would be miraculously freed from the marriage offer she had made to gain access to justice, and able to talk to Arya.

_Why is he here?_

_Are we to be wed sooner than the law prescribes? This is already our third courting session…_ It was the minimum prescribed by the law which offered between three to five conversations to the couple before the ceremony.

It was deemed inappropriate for anyone to marry a complete stranger. Parents normally arranged such conversations for their children, which could be either accompanied or private. Under normal circumstances, courting lasted for two years. Sansa had been looking forward to those two years with Joffrey, imagining she’d discover a new perfection on her betrothed every day.

Her own thoughts sounded ridiculous and strange to her now. She wouldn’t be able to harbour those expectations again.

And these weren’t normal circumstances...

The ceremony had to take place in maximum five days, but nothing prevented the magistrates to organise it earlier.

It must have been very late at night so today was out of question, though her lodging had no windows so she couldn’t tell.

_Will they do it tomorrow? The day after? Why the rush?_

“Sandor,” she whispered the prisoner’s name when the robots left them. She learned it, she might as well use it. _Former_ prisoner, she corrected herself. She’d freed him in her great wisdom or utmost foolishness.

“Who told you?” he blurted with surprise, his voice lacking its habitual edge.

“It was printed all over the inter-planetary network,” she said honestly. “I hope I didn’t mispronounce. We don’t have that name on the First Planet.”

“I hope it was printed in large letters under my brother’s obituary,” he said heartlessly. “I didn’t have the opportunity to check the news.” The meanness was back in his tone with force, as if it had never left it.

_Why does he have to speak like that?_

_Why can’t he... be himself and speak like Joffrey?_

_Sansa, don’t be a fool._

_He’s himself and speaks like himself._

She sighed, looking down, following a deeply entrenched womanly reflex of having to do so in many social situations.

The conversation was useless. _Will he ever learn?_ She puffed impatiently.

Somehow, after the painful discussion with her parents, she felt much older.

This man here had one benefit. He was new to her. He didn’t have the power of causing painful memories.

_Wait until you arrive to the Green Moon…_

He didn’t harm her during their first conversation despite that he could have done it. _Or maybe he just doesn’t want to take risks while being watched._

She’d pretend everything was fine, and then, maybe, it will be.

It made no sense to look back.

And she still needed to thank him.

xxxxxx

The girl was clearly deranged. Instead of calling him a boar, she began to _sing._

This _Sansa_ couldn’t have read he was fond of it on the inter-planetary network. No one knew. _No one alive._ And they wouldn’t believe him if they did - a man with his face and reputation was unlikely to appreciate music.

Her voice wasn’t like any other he had heard. There was a longing there, one he wished to fulfill.

It had been very long since he felt this hunger, and never quite like this, if he was as honest with himself as a man ought to be.

Moments ago, when they came for him to take him to Sansa, he’d wasted another opportunity to run away on his own and leave her alone; to her life, her _parents_ , her planet.

This morning, he’d stayed for her voice. It was the first time he heard it. It calmed him, it woke him, it stirred him. He needed to hear more of it.

Then, she’d seen it. She’d _caught_ him in action of freeing himself. She understood he wasn’t helpless and had the means to leave, now that he was out of the high security prison. She was even brave enough to say so… to speak her mind to a murderer.

He gave her the platitude of his convenience and self-interest as a reason to stay. That was true as well, but not the whole truth. He was completely unable to explain his other motives to a total stranger. She’d bought it, saddened, perhaps. That was very well. He didn’t want her to have illusions.

After seeing her parents, he couldn’t stop wondering... Why would a child of two obviously _rich_ people, who seemed to _care_ about their daughter, offer to save a murderer?

Whatever _her_ reasons, he concluded that they weren’t pretty, and her parents had apparently been unable to help her.

And since she saved his arse, he might just stick around to see if she needed saving hers.

In three days it would be his right to look and touch, and she would let him… She’d do her duty… The idea angered him.

He remembered _free_ embraces and how that felt.

His eyes filled with tears. He refused to let them run.

Squeezing them tightly, he basked in his good old memories.

But the song continued, taking him away from his past into _this_ present. With _this_ Sansa. If she continued, he might get a dangerous illusion that there were gods.

He imagined that the verses were about him.

After three couplets, it struck him that maybe they were...

For in the song he knew like everyone else on the bloody Seven Planets, Jonquil never came to visit Florian in a dungeon. That fool was too honourable to end up imprisoned, and the song didn’t say anything about him having a brother. Nor did he follow the maid from the pool where she bathed into the castle of her fathers to bring back the treasure she’d forgotten at the hot spring. And when he returned the precious possession, Jonquil was sincerely grateful.

 _You’re welcome, little bird,_ he thought absurdly, his chest still heaving with old pain, captive inside the too broad, ugly yellow garbage bag they made him wear.

Maybe they’d give him back his black jumpsuit for the bloody wedding.


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank hardlyfatal for offering to beta read this as of this chapter.
> 
> Any remaining mistakes (last minute editing) are mine.
> 
> First aid in understanding the planetary system called the Seven Planets which are actually nine.  
> First Planet - North  
> Second Planet - Dorne  
> Third Planet - Westerlands  
> Fifth Planet - Riverlands  
> Ninth Planet - King’s Landing and adjacent Crownlands  
> Green Moon - ????

**Warning for elements of non/con**

Non/con is not my thing as you may or may not know if you followed my other stories or stupid commenting habits.

This is the best I can say about this chapter other than telling what happens before you read it, which is also not my thing.

Xxxxxxxxx

Xxxxxxxxx

 

He was fast asleep when the robots shook him awake with their artificial hands, cold, metallic and harsh. He rose rapidly, breaking a mechanical arm that held him, on a life-saving impulse of self-defence. A gaseous substance was immediately released through the walls of his cell. At that moment, he heard a familiar voice of a man laughing: a mistake or a sensor glitch in communications of his invisible human watchers.

_ What’s Kevan still doing up here? _

He didn't think he’d be staying for the wedding.

Last thing he heard, the Lannisters gave a rat’s arse for the First Planet; inhospitable and poor in resources. Their continued presence was suspicious at the very least.

They had employed his brother.

The knowledge that they were one man short now gave him joy.

_ Farewell, sweet brother. I’ll see you in seven hells. _

On a second thought, maybe it was no coincidence that Gregor had travelled here. Sandor hadn't considered it before, burning with the wish to track him down and kill him. But now he had to admit that his  _ late _ brother rarely indulged in random violence and debauchery  _ outside _ their home on the Third Planet without orders. His solitary expedition to the First Planet, not sanctioned by his masters, was extremely unusual.

He wouldn't think of Gregor anymore. 

Having him on his mind his entire life was more than enough.

No longer condemned to death, but to marriage, he supposed there was another courting session to look forward.

With a woman he’d never  _ seen _ , and who’d picked him from the death row without telling him her reasons. Despite his bragging to her mother about big men, he didn’t think his size had anything to do with her choice. Not after seeing her parents. Not after hearing her sing.

Everyone was wealthy and lived long lives in the Seven Planets. Deaths were due to regional conflicts, old age and unknown plagues brought from space travel. As a consequence, the quarantine protocols in every spaceport were taken very seriously. 

As seriously as other planets’ ships in the orbit above one’s own.

However, by the looks of it, this girl could be the local Governor’s daughter. The wealth and the standing of her family would be much greater than usual. He regretted that his flight to the First Planet was rushed and unprepared or he would have downloaded the Governor's photograph.  _ Eddard Stark. _ The man’s reputation spoke of an honourable loner. Sandor presumed this meant he didn't have a family.

_ Sansa. _

_ Very rich. Young. With choice aplenty. _

He felt an absurd longing that she were ugly like himself, maybe even blind or lacking an arm; seeking comfort and protection in a husband who wouldn’t reject her, having his own disfigurement. If they both closed their eyes to each other’s defects… they wouldn't have to see anything in the dark. She could sing to him sweetly every night.

He laughed sharply.

He longed for  _ vision _ . For walking proudly with  _ his _ face in broad daylight. For having a woman he wanted look at him, all of him, and show him as her own.

He had it once, long ago, when he was little more than a boy. So far in the past that the loss was a dull sensation in his chest, neither forgotten nor cutting as it used to be.

Now, he hadn't even  _ seen _ his betrothed, and yet he couldn't get her off his mind. Not since she sang to him.

_ Sansa... _

His cowardly and imbecile musings must have been caused by toxic vapours he was made to inhale to calm him down.

In truth, just like to the electric shocks, he was more resistant to the nerve agent used than an average male. Not that he’d let anyone know. What Tywin did to his soldiers to make them stronger was a secret, and an element of surprise on  _ his _ side in uncertain times could mean a difference between life and death.

A life he was surprisingly eager to keep, despite that the only purpose he’d attributed to it for as long as he could remember was gone.

His brother was no more.

Not caring for politics, he’d followed the main events insofar as to avoid getting killed in some obscure local skirmish, while piloting his ship from one planet to another in his search for Gregor. Yet he’d have to be daft not to see that a full-scale war was in the making.

Seven Planets were boiling.

The son of the Supreme’s Governor had different paternity; Sandor could confirm _that_ rumour first hand. The succession to the office was at stake, with several planets putting forward their candidates to the highest function in the system.

A beep from one of the robots brought him back to the present moment. To his utmost surprise, the humanoid machine handed him over his jumpsuit.

This was almost as good as if the buggering,  _ honourable  _ First Planet men had decided to give him back his sword.

Sadly, they weren’t daft either. Maybe he had something in common with them.

He dressed in utmost calm, waiting impassively to be led out. The gas no longer leaked into the cell. His invisible human watchers in the adjacent chambers must have been appeased. He seemed pacified.

He wasn’t, and he never would be.

_ Let dead Gregor give testimony of that. _

Feeling accomplished, he followed his empty-headed, mechanical guards to what he thought would be another courting session. Was that how the idiocy of custom was called?

Instead, he ended up in a spacious hall with a high, open vault built of obsidian beams. A lonely man in a brown roughspun of the Faith stood at the hall’s opposite short end.

_ They mean to… _

They wouldn't wait for five days. That was why he got back his attire.

Sansa was already there. A heavy gown of lavish black velvet covered her entire figure, and a thin, opaque grey veil her face and hair. He couldn’t see what she looked like at all. Well, she didn't lack an arm or a leg, and she was rather tall. She’d easily surpass in height half of the population in the Seven Planets.

_ Maybe that’s the reason she couldn’t find a husband? _

Tall women were considered to be an abomination of nature by some, and pitied by most, for not being gracious and feminine. But quite a few males would still be bigger than her, and he definitely knew  _ dwarfs _ who would have adored her.

_ Ask her why she did it. _

He supposed he’d have plenty of opportunity to inquire about anything on the Green Moon.

_ Not in this morgue that serves as a sept for a day. _

In a true sept there would have been colourful crystals and domes, and altars of the seven gods. Not only obsidian beams on the ceiling, no matter how shiny. Probably no tainted glass existed on this seven-times-blasted planet. Only black dragonglass they used as building material.

All of a sudden, he felt humiliated by the constant surveillance and lack of privacy both he and Sansa were being exposed to, due to his status of a convicted criminal. Grandfather Melchior would turn in his grave.

She had  _ sung _ for him.

Without knowing that indulging in his affinity for music appeased him in  _ truth,  _ balanced him out, perhaps, more than any nerve agent designed especially for that purpose.

The precious memory made him feel increasingly odd and almost too warm in his favorite jumpsuit, equipped with the most advanced thermal regulator that always adjusted the inside temperature to a level optimal for fighting.

His thoughts jumped to the unavoidable follow-up of the bloody ceremony.

He could do it. Any man would, in his position. It was that or burn, the arrangement null and void.

If he had run away after the last courting session, he wouldn’t have been obliged to. Now it was too late, the robots too many, and the nerve agent had weakened his abilities to a suboptimal level.

But he didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t leave… without this  _ Sansa _ who seemed not to know what was good for her or she wouldn’t have picked him from the death row.

He was an abomination.

He felt both guilty and right about staying.

_ Time to get married, Grandfather. I wish you were here. _

Arrogant and careless, he grinned from ear to ear, striding towards his bride.

Xxxxxxxx

The prisoner looked markedly  _ different _ this morning.

_ Not the prisoner,  _ she corrected her faulty thought.  _ Sandor. _

She glanced with curiosity at her future husband who paced through the Castle of Justice of the City of Winterfell in a jumpsuit black like pitch, taking steps worthy of a giant. The synthetic hugged his body in a way that would be considered obscene on a woman. Even men wore garments that tight only for inter-planetary travel, never for shorter flights from the planet to the prison colony, or to the Green Moon.

_ Or in war. _

The last large-scale armed conflict on the First Planet had ended before Sansa was born. Supreme Governor’s Uprising. Robb was a baby. Father had taken part in it and survived. After, he never talked about it to anyone, not even to Mother.

The prisoner…  _ Sandor _ … he cut an impressive figure. His suit was impeccably clean, pointedly not  _ cheap,  _ and obviously tailored to his measure.

_ This must be what he wore when coming here.  _

If one ignored his scars, and Sansa strove hard to do so--  _ because a lady should be able to look past a disability to the person behind,  _ her septa’s voice instructed her harshly in her head-- he looked gallant today.

It was hard to believe that this calm, neatly clad man had killed his only brother.

Yet the evidence was irrefutable, and he had confessed to it himself, without any coercion or drugs employed to establish the facts in criminal processes.

_ Why did you do it? _

_ Are you a soldier? _

_ Was it some freak accident? _

She had to stop looking for reason. There wasn’t any in the world where Father believed she would have willfully dishonoured her family for love. She had loved Joffrey, but not that much.

Sandor gave her a dark, disturbing look that frightened her. Staring at two grey pools of restlessness through the satin veil covering her face, she became slowly convinced that his calm attitude was an act. The man breaking chains and hitting steel walls was still in there. She could be the next object he ruined. A husband could kill a wife if she dishonoured him. Or repudiate her and send her back to her parents.

After her experience with Joffrey, Sansa began doubting the truthfulness of allegations no one ever verified. Once married, the woman belonged to her husband. Parents had no more say in her future.

Yet it was natural and true that honourable men never lied, and that they loved and protected their wives until the end of their days. Her father was like this. It was no wonder that Mother gave him both her duty and her love, despite that they never mentioned it in public, keeping prudent distance in appearances. A good woman never dishonoured her husband, but love on her side wasn’t required; only respect and obedience.

But how many men were like Father? She had believed  _ all _ of them, and now…

She didn’t know.

Maybe if Sandor repudiated her for a minor offence this could represent an respectable way out of this for everyone? Perhaps she could talk to him about it?

But first they had to…

She swallowed hard, feeling cold and afraid.

It was one thing to conceive this, and a completely different matter to go ahead with her stupid, courageous plan.

She didn’t hear the septon nor herself reciting her vows; she almost forgot the man who had just become her husband. All she cared for was herself and her paralysing fear of the coming hours, as she recited to herself in her head what a woman should do to seal a marriage after the holy rites.

For her, exceptionally, there would be no complete privacy the act usually required and entailed. The magistrates had to observe that the shameful deed was done, or any woman could save any prisoner for money or to stop being a…  _ spinster _ . The term was unfamiliar to Sansa. These abuses never happened on the First Planet because women never used the law, but  they were apparently very common on other places, especially on the Third Planet where Sandor and his brother hailed from. The magistrates had to be vigilant. 

Kevan Lannister had come to explain all this to Sansa before the ceremony. Replacing Lord Manderly, the president of the jury, who had already returned home to White Spaceport, Lord Lannister had handed her a pad with ten typed lines of instructions about how a maiden ought to act in marriage bed.

Lord Baelish had stayed in Winterfell as well, wishing to follow the execution of justice first hand.

_ To look as she was being... _

Eyes of strange, unfriendly men would watch how she was divested of her innocence. This was loathsome and hateful, that she would be so exposed, and not only  _ hurt  _ by a total stranger whom she chose to marry.

She wondered if her parents had to observe as well.

_ They might. _

In other circumstances, her mother would have begun preparing her a week prior to her marriage, conveying one bit of the necessary knowledge every evening. Sansa suspected her explanations would be longer than ten lines involving unknown words from the sphere of anatomy that were surely shameful and sounded awful.

Lost in thought and submerged in her fears, she barely registered when the robots led them away from the sept, until she and her husband were both ushered through a steel door that closed ominously behind them.

The bedroom had a view to the lake.

She didn’t understand why this unnecessary touch of beauty was required. The high obsidian skyscrapers of Winterfell, the pride or her planet, would have been an equally appropriate sight.

Positioning herself in a corner, as far as possible from her husband and the bed in the middle, she lacked the courage to remove her tights and  _ knickers  _ (new, awful word), lay down, lift her skirts and bare her… (she couldn’t even  _ think _ of the horrible utterance on Lord Lannister’s pad, a word beginning with “c”).

Sandor made no move to approach her, hanging in an opposite corner, looking impassive as a switched off robot-guard.

Down the lake, she could see the small transport being readied to take them to the Green Moon. Her father’s men would return afterwards, and Sansa would remain in exile for the rest of her life.

All of a sudden, her husband trod towards her like a boulder. Instinctively, she backed off. His large, clear-cut figure that had looked striking in the sept only served to exacerbate her fears in the closed space they were obliged to share.

To her horror, she realised she might have been unable to lay down for any husband her parents would have chosen for her.

If she remained a maid, Sandor would be put to death by fire; her plea for his life null and void. She remembered him asking of her not to let him burn… She wanted to save him from that, she did! He’d helped her with the dress. He’d hidden it before he knew she would offer to save him. Before she knew it herself.

She wished she were able to lay down, act as was proper, be a great, compassionate and dignified lady. But the obligation was so contrary to her most intimate wishes that she couldn’t.

By the old gods, she simply wasn't able to go through with this.

It was too much to ask.

She burst into tears.

“The little bird’s changing her mind?” he would have rasped, almost softly, if only his voice weren’t so deep and… burned. If only he had a pleasant baritone like Joffrey…

Standing before her, so much closer than she would have ever wanted  _ any _ man to arrive, Sandor was almost leaning on her, and yet didn’t touch her at all.

Sansa was unable to answer. Her courtesies must have flown to the Green Moon already.

“Just as I thought,” he sounded  _ bored _ and disappointed now.

She couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t think of anything but herself. It would hurt, it would be  _ terrible, _ and she would never be able to follow the path she had chosen unless she was widowed. By that time all her purity would be gone and the gods wouldn’t accept her hymns nor her prayers with grace.

Maybe she would have children. They redeemed and soothed the woman’s fall that inevitably and lawfully happened inside marriage. She could give herself to the gods if she was widowed by the time her children came of age. She found some consolation in that thought, and gathered her non-existent courage.

“I can’t…” she stuttered through her tears, wiping them continuously as they fell behind the veil covering her face. “I’ll try…” she said, biting her lip.

Lights twinkled. The countdown began. They had half an hour.

He was silent like a tomb, not helping with this, not at all.

After a while, he rattled heartlessly, “Come on, be a good girl, do what your mother told you. Whatever it is they tell to stupid girls like you. They must say something.”

His words were very disquieting. She couldn’t tell whether he was mocking her or being serious. Probably it was better than claiming her by force.

Maybe a man couldn’t assert his rights if a woman didn’t do her part?

In truth, she had no notion what would exactly happen after she bared her private parts. The text on Lord Lannister’s pad informed in the end that her husband would do as it pleased him, whether she wanted it or not.

The only inkling of own knowledge she had about the act was that women  _ hurt  _ from it, and she had learned it from Arya, who had picked it up only the gods knew where.

The computer started counting the time. They had half an hour to do this, or the robots would burst in, take him away,  _ burn _ him.

“Let’s get over with this,” he whispered to her ear, never leaving her private space; stoic and immobile. His increasing proximity enhanced her fears, but his renewed calmness alleviated them.

It was now or never, before she lost all her courage again.

On an auto-pilot, she mechanically directed herself to bed, like one of her father’s robots, and did her duty, revealing the lower part of her body to her husband.

Sandor stared at her woman’s place from a distance; calm and inscrutable. And then, he pointedly looked away.

The clock gave them 22 minutes and 22 seconds, the numbers absurdly equal, blinking read.

She cried again. Now she almost wanted him to do it, so that it would be over, so that they would leave this room, this planet, her life. It was all over anyway. Her father hadn’t found a way to save her from the marriage she’d inflicted upon herself.

Protesting against the prospect of the unwanted act, she rolled to a side and curled up like Rickon in his baby bed.

To her surprise, he took her action of instinctive disobedience as an invitation, divesting himself of the jumpsuit unbelievably fast. And of his underwear. It would be most improper to look at his naked body! The last detail she registered before closing her eyes was that the clock gave them 21 minute and 20 seconds.

She kept her eyes firmly closed when he sat next to her on bed. He found the edge of her veil and lifted it, looking at her face for the first time.

“Bugger all,” he said after a while, the words appalling. His deep voice  _ hurt,  _ his exact meaning irritably cryptic. In a strange, nearly gentle, or perhaps just clumsy motion, he meticulously re-covered her face and hair.

She suddenly wished he had touched her cheek, like Joffrey had done, wondering how it would feel. She felt cold under her waist, but there was a vague tingle in her throat, similar to the nervous excitement she had felt in presence of the Supreme Governor’s son. She must be wanton and evil! She didn’t even know Sandor!

Women were weak and frail. They succumbed to any man, having no will of their own. This was the reason why they should never stay alone with a man before marriage! Why their families and septas had to look after them, to protect their honour.

Sandor changed position. Sitting behind her back, he lowered himself on the bed next to her, and then covered her entirely with a huge white blanket. Finally, he also crept under, very close to her, yet not touching her with any part of his, she remembered, completely naked body.

The situation was overwhelming and unthinkable. A lifetime of lessons wouldn’t prepare her for this shock of proximity and impropriety.

It became so warm in bed that she couldn’t breathe. Yet she didn’t dare ask to be uncovered. She had already said too much by letting him know she didn’t want this, disobeying him after they were married. She had to let him do as he pleased.

To her surprise, the mattress under him began to move and creak, and there were odd sounds of skin being rubbed and sheets rumpling under the blanket. After a while, her husband grunted. Was he hurting? Then, he made a different sound, similar to a sigh, just terribly deep in register. Did this please him? How? She felt none of the  _ pain  _ she had been expecting. He wasn’t even touching her!

Suddenly too curious to lay still, she rolled towards him with open eyes, lifted the veil from her face, and looked at him through the remnant of her tears.

Only his huge, disfigured head was protruding from the bedlinen, half hidden with matted, lank black hair in a need of washing. His eyes were closed. He looked ugly and harmless. Someone should take good care of him. She almost caressed him.

“Sandor!” she dared call him. “What are you doing?” she asked with honest curiosity.

He opened his eyes in amazement.

She felt lost from the changed expression on his  _ special  _ face, she concluded, that’s how it was. His gaze was soft, quiet and warm. Her hand wandered off instinctively to his hurt cheek.

“Buggering gods,” he murmured.

In a moment, she felt sticky liquid on her thigh, wondering what had happened.

The computer stopped counting at two minutes and twenty-two seconds.

_ Symmetry. A perfect number. _

They were apparently successful in consummating their marriage. The experience was thankfully not awful, but it was also a bit disappointing. It was… nothing really, and marriage should have been  _ something _ , a profound change in a woman’s life.

A change Sansa had never wanted, except briefly, with Joffrey.

He pointedly uncovered her now, and she squeezed her eyes shut not to see him naked. Blind as a bat, she felt him wipe her leg, never reaching her private parts. After a longer while, he cleared his throat and his voice came from… from a distance.

She dared open her eyes and saw him dressed, in the corner he’d occupied when they had entered the room.

Faking calm.

Waiting for her to get up, she realised.

Mechanically, she rose from her marriage bed, found her  _ knickers, _ and made herself presentable.

The robots didn’t tardy to lead them both to the transport.

Father stood on the clearing before it, with ten of his best guards, pointing a laser gun he almost never used at Sandor

“We only kill  _ him _ ,” he clarified to his men. “Leave her unharmed. She’s still my daughter.”

“No!” Sansa protested. Murder was a vile crime. Her father would be imprisoned for it, sentenced to death, banished to the Green Moon at best. Ambitious and cold, Lord Bolton would become the Governor as he had plotted for years. Even Sansa was able to understand this, despite that she missed many other obvious things people longed for, according to Arya.

Not having a better idea how to stop her father, she placed herself before Sandor.

“Get out!” Father commanded her, not resembling the kind, considerate man he knew, but a bloodthirsty killer.

“I have to obey  _ him _ now, Father,” Sansa tried to explain. “Maybe he will reject me and send me back. I haven’t been a good wife.”

Her father turned purple with rage at her words. “You’re a pervert!” he yelled at Sandor and changed the setting on the laser gun from stun to kill. “She’s a child! Weren't there more  _ normal  _ ways to-”

“And you're an idiot!” Sandor snarled dismissively at her father, and then pushed Sansa aggressively out of his way.

Flabbergasted, Sansa nearly hit the ground from the force of his gesture that confirmed her worst fear. He could kill her with his bare hands if he wanted.

Father didn’t waste a second, firing the gun. Her husband jumped away with uncanny speed. The thin, powerfully concentrated energy beam hit the transport, very near Sansa who was too shocked to scream.

Snatching a laser  _ blade _ from one of the guards, Sandor took a ceremonial stance for an old fashioned sword fight and bowed deeply. Father immediately dropped the gun and drew  _ Ice  _ from the casing on his back, bending in return.

Sansa had never expected she would see him use the ancient weapon, one of the first laser swords in existence. More powerful than the standard ones produced today, the weapon had remained in function for hundreds of years. Father had only carried it as a symbol of his lineage and authority until now.

Honour dictated that other men wouldn’t shoot during a challenge with blades Sandor had just started. This custom hailed from very ancient times. After, however…

Sansa’s heart was paralysed.

Father and Sandor fought mercilessly. Neither prevailed. Blood was drawn from legs, from arms.

“Stop it!” Sansa found her voice. Terribly upset, she wailed and screamed, but men wouldn’t listen. Mother might be able to stop Father, but she wasn’t there.

When she thought she would pass out from exhaustion, a large ship of unknown provenance obliterated the view of the sky. It was too big to be in the atmosphere, and its main hull had… metallic tentacles.

Sansa's mouth fell open. This was so unsafe! The unfamiliar vessel had to return to orbit and then head to the spaceport or it could  _ explode  _ here. She assumed it was a malfunction that had caused it to drift to Winterfell.

Her blood  ran cold when she realised her mistake.

The ship was readying itself to open fire.

The unthinkable was becoming real. This wasn't some local fight with small one-man shuttles.

_ This must be war _ .

Winterfell was under attack.

“Father!” she screamed again, more stridently than before, but it was too late.

An extremely powerful laser beam landed  _ between  _ father and Sandor, opening a deep rift in the ground.

She looked back and realised that the transport that should have taken her to the Green Moon was  _ burning _ , so close to her that she could almost feel the flames licking her gown.

Strong arms closed around her waist. She didn’t have to look to see who it was. She’d always know him by his scent from now on.  _ Since we were under the blanket…  _ She couldn’t think of it. Her cheeks burned like the world around her.

“Come.” He nudged her into movement. “This way, girl.”

She followed him blindly, petrified, unable to find her own way. The world was so different than her solitary, maidenly room: terrifying, ebullient, effervescent.

“Can’t you go any  _ faster _ ?” he asked impatiently.

His barking made her stop. She stayed put, useless, unable to continue.

He hauled her over his shoulder and ran, following the lake, and then veering into the ancient pine forest; fast, as if she didn’t weigh an ounce. The smell of burning plasma pursued them for a long while, strong and persistent.

_ I’m tall,  _ she thought absurdly.  _ I’m heavy. _

The undignified position produced an odd, calming effect in her simultaneously stiff and nervous body. Arya could do something like  _ this  _ to her were she strong enough.

The memory of her sister made her wail like a madwoman. She continued crying against his jumpsuit. The black material felt like  _ plastic _ , rather than the usual synthetic fibre.

With watery eyes and a hurting soul, she dared a look back. Milky yellow clouds of flaring plasma, made of oxygen molecules as a main compound, coloured the normally grey sky over Winterfell.  _ Will it ever stop burning?  _ Transports were leaving the city, heading in all directions.

In the woods, the air slowly cleared, smelling only of dew and the aftermath of a summer storm. They were at least a mile away from her home city that had fallen victim to some terrible invasion from outer space.

Sandor flipped her over and put her to the ground. She was relieved when he retrieved his hands to himself. He… he was an intrusion in her private sphere, she concluded. Why did he have to carry her? Why couldn’t he keep his distance as was proper between husband and wife? The sinful acts of bedding and touching should be performed only at night and behind closed doors. The couple should aim to do it quickly, and undress minimally, with the sole aim of the swift procreation that pleased the gods.

Even in this, she was sinful and worthless. She didn’t  _ want _ Sandor’s child despite that they were now married and it should be her only desire. She wished she could go back to her parents’ house and become a septa when she would be too old to take a husband. Wash away all her sins and spend her life intoning hymns to the gods, old and new. Forget the episode with Joffrey entirely…

And be as far away as possible from Sandor and the… the challenge he represented. Yes,  _ challenge _ was the right word, though she couldn’t tell why.

“My father…” she wept incessantly, her body shaking in gargantuan sobs. “We have to go back,” she tried to insist, but her words came out like a weak moan.

Sandor grabbed her face between his huge palms, obliging her to look him in the eye. Both the faked indifference and genuine anger were gone from his expression. His gaze was restless, but not disquieting. Gentler than she would have ever thought possible, incredibly more tender than Joffrey, he wiped her last tears.

His touch on his face was everything she imagined, as well as many other, inconceivable sensations.  _ New. Tickling. Thrilling. _

“We can’t go back,” he asserted, as if he needed her to understand that.

She looked into his eyes and loved their colour; grey and sparkly like the sky on a summer evening, with the last rays of sun hiding under wisps of clouds.

For a moment she thought he might... kiss her.

_ Kisses _ , chaste or passionate, filled the pages of e-books she’d swallowed on the sly when she was eleven, in minuscule font, so that the grown-ups wouldn’t register what she had been reading. That was before she understood the sinfulness and vain stupidity of romances, and turned to praying to purify her soul. She believed that a kiss involved a touch of lips, but the books never went as far as to explain the exact nature of that forbidden union.

This wasn’t a tale. And yet…

“But my family-” she finally protested meekly, not knowing what else to do or say. 

“Your father’s a capable killer!” he barked, ruining the moment. “They’ll be fine.”


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, hardlyfatal, for your help with this chapter ;-))

           

The girl didn’t speak.

Not anymore. Not since he grabbed her face and told her they couldn’t go back to Winterfell.

He’d expected her to continue bombing him with annoying questions. Where were they going? Or worse, why? The last one he wouldn’t be able to answer to himself.

_Wherever. Away from burning._

His young wife.

But instead of opening her pretty mouth, she only recovered her face with the bloody veil that had slid off while he’d carried her. Treading after him, she sank into dead silence.

He walked damn slow.

Much slower than he would have wanted.

Well, at least she could follow easily, and he didn't have to carry her any longer, veil and all.

Surprisingly, her muteness irritated him even more than the nagging he’d been counting on.

_What, am I not handsome enough for your liking?_

_Aren’t you grateful that I spared you the shame and the pain?_

Although... He didn’t want her gratitude.

Of course he didn't, he told himself. He didn't want anything from her or anyone else.

He didn't want anything at all.

Unwillingly, he sniffed the fresh and pungent scent of some thorny, evergreen shrubbery from the First Planet.

_Much better than plasma stench._

“Where are we going?” The dreaded question finally came in a frightened, tiny voice from behind her veil. Not the confident one with which she’d sung to him.

_Too bad for you. You chose this, and guess what? Now it’s real. Deal with it._

He decided to give a rat’s arse about _why_ she saved him. It was her problem, not his.

“Do you always wear tents over your head and shoulders on this bloody planet?” he asked rudely.

“Only in solemn occasions when we want to show absolute propriety and respect towards gods and men,” she explained with unwavering politeness. “Wedding is one of them.”

Now that she said it, Cersei had worn a white veil when marrying Robert and her ladies had praised her innocence, if he still remembered that day with any accuracy.

The years of his employ with her did not sit well with him even now, so he tried very hard not to recall them.

_Too much blood for nothing._

_And some of it spilled by you._

The First Planet was perhaps not as primitive as men on the Third Planet believed.

They didn’t cover their women all the time. Only on special occasions.

_My wife._

He didn’t think she’d be so courteous to him had he taken his rights and filled her up with his seed.

 _Many little potential Sandors,_ he quipped inwardly.

_Or, more like than not, with my luck, Gregors._

“Where are we going?” she repeated. “Shouldn’t we go back to the city and seek transport to the Green Moon?”

He snorted. “We are probably considered _dead_ . We were _that_ close to that laser beam. Dead people can’t be banished. The living either left Winterfell or fled to underground shelters.”

 _Or they burned._ He was unable to voice that assumption aloud lest he woke his own damned fears.

“Or they _suffocated_ ,” he emphasized. “At least one of the projectiles used in the attack was chemical crap. And there were plasma bombs. You know what that means, don’t you? Or are you that stupid?”

No answer came.

He calmed somewhat and finished his long rant. “I say we’re free to do what we want.”

It was only half a lie. They had to leave the planet soon.

_No choice in that._

The atmosphere would be poisoned for a while, the pollution from plasma bombs would spread slowly into the environment. It wasn’t something he would risk inhaling for a long period of time

Nor would he let his wife.

The less time they spent here after the attack, the better. Or he might sprout horns and mutate into a different monster than he already was by his own choosing.

He felt pity for the little, freshly smelling evergreen shrub that had given overwhelming joy to his tired senses, and hoped it would survive plasma-induced long summer.

The temperature would rise to at least 42 degrees Celsius during daytime, and it would be damn hot.

“What would please you, _husband?_ Sansa asked in a heartbreaking tone of absolute disgrace and hurt.

He stifled the urge to laugh at her for it.

_Nothing, probably._

To his marvel, she uncovered her face again. The silvery veil remained hanging loosely over her shoulders. The shock of seeing her was as great now as it had been when he’d done it himself out of supreme curiosity, beholding her for the first time in their horrendously cold and ugly prison bedchamber.

She was younger than dawn and more beautiful than the sun.

“Why?” he asked, unable to hold it in any longer. “Why this? Why me? You didn’t have to do any of it. What has gotten into you, girl?”

She looked down. “It almost seems _trivial_ now,” she answered. “But it was a matter of life and death to me two days ago.”

He could understand the life and death importance of certain matters, but her meaning still escaped him.

“You’ll have to speak plainly,” he barked. His right leg hurt terribly and he began to walk with a limp. Her father had aimed for, and cut through the junction on the leg of his jumpsuit in his attempt to kill him. Precisely that laser-welded suture was the most vulnerable place of his state-of-the-art martial attire and bloody Stark must have known it.

Sandor had tried hard to reciprocate and kill Sansa’s father, but the bugger defended himself as proficiently as he attacked.

_A competent killer, indeed._

The gash on his leg was probably deep and he would be lucky if he made it to his ship without fainting like a green boy from the first sight of his own blood.

_Not far anymore._

_The door. I need to unlock it. She won’t be able to do it._

He thought he recognised the place where he landed when chasing Gregor, though maybe he was wrong, because the entire forested countryside looked the same: still pleasantly chilly and populated with dark green trees.

When he lost hope of receiving an answer to his heart-wrenching question about why in seven hells she’d asked to marry _him_ , Sansa began speaking nervously of her reasons. “A boy said I dishonoured myself with him-

“-and men never lie,” he repeated what he had been hearing all his life. “Until they do.” He stated the truth of things as he had learned it from experience.

Everyone lied from time to time.

“He was...” she stuttered, “he was so innocent that he thought I dishonoured myself from a simple touch I allowed him because… because I loved him. But it turns that neither he nor I knew what true dishonour was so it was an honest mistake on his part.”

This ridiculously sappy excuse was either a truth from a planet populated by a bizarre race of humanoid worms, or a cruel lie on Sansa’s expense.

“He’s human, I suppose, not a Yi Ti alien?” he shot at her.

Sansa nodded.

“And you believe him?” he bellowed incredulously. _How stupid can you be?_

Men mostly resorted to declaring such truths about women because they were vengeful or evil. Not with concern for any absolute, noble truth. Otherwise, they kept their mouth shut and enjoyed sweet dishonour prohibited by the gods.

The memory of his sweet sins still stung as if everything had happened today and not almost twelve years ago.

He was very young and a widow older than him by ten years or so took him in, loved him, taught him everything good life had to offer.

_Other than killing Gregor._

And then, one lovely day, she kicked him out, ordering him to go away.

He gritted his teeth and left without a word, believing she’d found another man and was fed up with the scarred boy.

Two years later he heard she’d died from a rare disease brought from outer space, the onset of which had possibly been the reason why she had forsaken him in the first place. Careful questioning told him she hadn’t taken another lover in the time he was gone.

He’d cried for her, and hated himself for not swallowing his pride and staying around her despite her wishes.

“Joffrey is only twenty, a year older than me,” Sansa continued. “He was raised as conservatively as myself. I thought we had this in common. But it is true that I have my doubts about him... not knowing. He… he touched my face with my permission. Then he went to his mother and stated the sacred truth about my loss of honour. Why didn’t he speak to his father first? If he truly didn’t know?”

 _Joffrey?_ How many more were there besides Cersei’s son? The name apparently befitted idiots. He didn’t know it was popular on the First Planet.

“So you...” he guessed wildly. “You did it to earn a septa’s examination and figure for yourself what you did or didn’t do.”

Sansa nodded, purple from shame.

“Tell me,” he demanded sardonically, “was I the most handsome prisoner when you sneaked into the prison to make your pick of a husband?”

“You aren’t handsome,” she blurted rudely.

He laughed at her insolence because it was so obvious that the insult had escaped her.

Now she was realising it.

And she was even more beautiful when flustered, her embarrassment taking over.

“I’m sorry!” she excused herself with passion. “I didn’t mean to-”

“But you did,” he cut her off. “So what? You only told me the truth. I’ve been living with it for twenty-three years.”

He could count the days since the horror of flaring plasma had ruined his cheek of a child, vividly reliving the experience in presence of any fire, large or small.

 _Until today,_ he realised.

Gregor was dead and Sandor had escaped the curse of remembrance and fear for the first time.

He had carried _Sansa_ through the flames and failed to arrive at the usual state of extreme paralysis and shutdown after having to deal with burning.

“You and the young man who was quarantined were the only ones scheduled to die on the next day,” she explained fervently. “There were three more for the week after, but they didn’t inspire any trust. They looked… deranged.”

This surprised him. So there was _some_ choice made in his favour. It wasn’t completely incidental. “And I didn’t?”

“You looked dangerous,” she reacted, “but not scary like them. Gods, what am I saying? I’m so _stupid._ ”

He could agree with that, but could not say it to her.

“No, you’re not.” He was angry with himself for consoling the girl. What was he, a wet nurse?

“But I only jumped from one shame to another,” she announced bitterly. “I’ll never be free to follow my heart. Now I’m tied to you.”

Unexpectedly, the accusation made him feel guilty. He… he realised he wished she could have followed her heart.

“You’re mine only in word,” it was his turn to blurt. His leg hurt more with every moment. “Don’t you know that?”

Her face was a book open on an empty page.

“You _don’t_ know!” he snarled incredulously. “On which planet do you live? They don’t tell you anything before you ought to marry and pop out little babies for some gnat?”

Was that normal for girls? Maybe it was. He never knew how it was for them. He had enough on his plate without caring how it was for others.

“Didn’t we…” She was trembling like a young leaf in spring. “But I disrobed after my initial refusal, as did you, and then-”

“I put up a mummer’s show of bedding you for the spectators, yes.” _She has no clue. Unbelievable._ “The way you looked to me, getting naked under the blanket with you to jerk off already seemed too much, but I couldn’t come up with any better idea. I’m sure that your mother would call me a boar for it. But if your septa examined you now, she’d come to the same result like before,” he boomed. “You’re no one’s wife in deed, and mine only in name.”

“Please take me back to my father,” she pleaded vigorously. “You’re free now, as you said! We can say you died if you wish. You wouldn’t have to burn or go to the Green Moon or… or anything! I’d never betray your secret, on my honour as a Stark. I could be your grieving widow and never remarry.”

“Remarry?” he thundered with rage. “No.” He couldn’t, wouldn’t allow for that possibility. “I didn’t oblige you to say the vows, did I?”

Taking her back didn’t sit well with him despite that it represented the most logical choice.

_Why in seven hells do I wish to keep her?_

She stared at him with her eyes wide open, puzzled to the extreme. “I don’t understand you-” she began.

“What’s there to understand?” he wondered brazenly. “No means no. I’m not giving you back.”

The sleek, black silhouette of his ship appeared in his field of vision in a grove of high pines.

“There it is,” he whispered with heartfelt relief.

He had to open the door for she wouldn’t be able to do it.

It was too late.

He’d lost too much blood from his leg on the long way from Winterfell, and his blood pressure had gotten too low.

His entire world changed colour, from russet and auburn to black.

Xxxxxxxx

Sandor _baffled_ her.

But his passing out was horrendously scary, and the worst possible calamity that could have befallen her after being so cruelly separated from her family.

She’d never been alone in wilderness, with no one to turn to for advice and recommendations, and the atmosphere would become poisonous soon. Of course she knew that, despite his evil mockery of her intelligence. But only from theoretical lessons about warfare.

She would have to apply them now.

“Sandor!” she shook him, first gently, and then hard.

He twitched and mumbled deeply, devotedly, as if her name meant something to him, “Sansa.”

His low voice caused strange effects to the solidity of her spine. Like a glass of sweet Arbor gold on a harvest feast.

Opening his eyes, he looked decisively away from her, towards something else, as though she was nothing to him.

After he called her name with so much emotion, this was so disappointing.

Soon, his gaze became glassy, losing focus.

“Sandor!” she screamed.

She looked in the same direction as he did before fainting.

_A ship._

And not just any vessel.

First class dragon starship from the Ninth Planet.

Other planets didn't use animal shapes to design space vessels.

The practice wasn’t forbidden by the law, but it simply wasn’t done. The dragons represented the tradition of nobility and royalty, despite that the Seven Planets didn’t have a king anymore.

Only the Board of Governors.

Father had invested in a wolf class of late that he had yet to reveal to anyone outside their planet.

And the _kraken_ above Winterfell could it be…. the Greyjoys having done the same?

If all other great houses were imitating the power of dragons, this didn’t bode well for the unity of the Seven Planets.

The Supreme Governor commanded the ancient and powerful fleet of dragonships of the Seven Planets. The renowned warriors who manned them for him were dubbed Dragonknights by the people, long time ago.

Sandor’s brother had been one of them.

_Did you steal this vessel, Sandor?_

Maybe there was another logical explanation.

“Pretty,” he murmured.

Why was he so much more amenable and charming when he was wounded?

Her hands began trembling from fear. The atmosphere wasn’t poisoned yet, but it would soon be. His sudden weakness could only mean one thing.

“Are you hurt?” she whispered.

No answer came.

_Why did you kill your brother?_

She’d answered _his_ question. He could respond to her! She felt red from anger at him. For confusing her. For touching her face… For not claiming his rights. For not wanting to let her _go_ nonetheless. Why wouldn’t he send her back if he hadn’t even wanted to bed her? What did _jerking off_ mean?

She was and wasn’t married.

None of this was as it was supposed to be.

Worst of all, he _was_ hurt and she was all alone.

Her hands curled into fists and she hit his immobile chest hard. _Stay with me, please. Please, Sandor. Don’t you dare die on me._

His jumpsuit was warm like him, not plastic as it should be. _Some advanced polymer, strong and organic._

It was late summer and first snow had not yet fallen. It would come soon. But now the Greyjoys showered her planet in plasma. Maybe  it wouldn't fall for years.

_Only acid rain._

Now that her shock from the attack had subsided, she remembered seeing her father on his feet after the laser beam almost struck her and Sandor down, separating them from her family. Perhaps he had seen her as well. The Starks must have flown to the outpost of Greywater Watch, equipped to serve as shelter for these circumstances

Mother had always  hoped it would never be used...

Sansa decided she should enter the dragonship and take her and Sandor there. She couldn’t leave him _here_ despite his insolence. That would be heartless even towards the _worst_ enemy.

Everything would be fine. It would, it had to be. She just had to endure. She was trained to act like her father would in emergencies, even when they surpassed her wildest imagination.

The hatch wouldn’t open by any method she was taught.

Buttons, catches, secret words from prayers to the gods, old or new, touching the sensors to activate them with the bioprint of human hand…

It wasn’t cold enough in her surroundings _._

It was beginning to be unnaturally warm for this time of the year.

_His hand, maybe, if he stole the ship and personalised it to hide his crime._

With every ounce of her strength, she pulled Sandor half upright, thankful that he’d passed out close to his vessel, and brought his hand to the sensor.

The hatch opened. The cloaking device shut down, revealing a classically long and powerful winged hull of the dragonship.

The shock at her success made her drop his hand and him. His poor, limp body slid down. She reached for him instantly, but he was so heavy that he hit the rocky ground only a moment before she would have caught him. She nonetheless took him in her arms as if her late reaction could soften his fall. He felt heavy and warm.

She noticed that the right leg of his jumpsuit was wet. On an impulse, she touched the liquid that looked black like his attire. Retrieving her hand, she gasped.

_Blood._

_An injury. Father had wounded him._

She remembered the duel with laser swords where both her father and her new husband  father drew blood from each other. But Sandor had carried her _this_ far, how could he be so badly hurt?

_The jumpsuit._

_Designed to minimise suffering from injuries in war._

Father had wanted to make her a widow.

And while she didn’t want this marriage as such, only justice for herself who had always done her best to honour the laws of god and men, this wasn’t the right way.

Every dragon class ship had to have a medical encoder, right?

Maybe a robot to drag him in?

Rummaging inside revealed no artificial life forms. The medical kit was there, but she didn’t know how to turn on the encoder. The device should patch any injury with special radiation so that it stopped being life threatening, before a maester could examine it and take the healing process further.

If only it would work.

_What shall I do?_

There was only one option. She couldn’t lift him to pull him into the belly of the dragon over the set of stairs resembling a pair of legs with claws.

Accessing the water storage for space travel, she poured a generous quantity into the plastic cover of the main hatch that she could  disassemble and _lift._ Finally, she poured it over his big head.

He blinked, uncertain where he was, but stayed awake, present, with her.

Her heart beat faster and she was pleased with her success.

“Younger than dawn and more beautiful than the sun,” he murmured. “And hating me.” He sounded as if he regretted the later.

Sansa gaped. Strange warmth ran through her entire body from tip to toe from the sound of _his_ voice giving her _compliments_ instead of mocking and despising her..

She immediately chastised herself. Women fell for sweet talking. That’s why they needed protection from themselves.

But insincere compliments were flattering lies, used by wicked men to corrupt the chastity of ladies, and this sounded…

Like he wasn’t himself, and yet profoundly honest.

“Please, don’t be upset,” she stated cautiously. “You’re wounded and you must have been dreaming. Could you lean on me to get in?” she demanded almost hysterically.

His expression cleared, the soft confusion in his eyes giving in to stiff coldness. He nonetheless did as he was bid, made it to the deck of the ship with her, though nowhere near the pilot seat as she had hoped, and then collapsed again on the floor. She slapped him and handed him the encoder. “Start it please before you faint again! I can’t!” she yelled madly.

He ran a thumb over the pad and it beeped. Just in time before losing consciousness once more.

She grabbed the device and ran it over his leg as she was taught, hoping that the equipment was working. After ten minutes, she realised she should close the hatch and launch life support to keep the pollution out. She was probably still in time, though there was no visible clock to tell her how much time she had left.

Soon, she was done.

_We’re free to do what we want._

Whatever that meant to him, and Sansa wasn’t exactly certain. People obeyed the just laws freely, out of the goodness in their hearts.

That’s why they didn’t _murder_ each other.

She wiped the blood from his suit in the plastic omni-purpose tissue that came packed with the encoder, resisting the temptation to clean it with the hem of her dress and put her palm on his forehead.

 _And why not?_ She reconsidered the latter idea. They were married, if only in name. There wasn’t any shame in seeing if he had fever.

 _Or in touching him,_ she realised.

A wife could touch her husband, unless he made it clear to her that she shouldn’t.

It wasn’t a sin.

She found his skin reassuringly cool, in contrast with general warmth that emanated from his body whenever he was too near for her liking. The bottom of her palm accidentally touched his scars, rigid and dry despite their horrendous appearance.

He opened his eyes.

The medical encoder must have fulfilled its function and made him feel better.

“Fuck, seven heavens,” he rumbled incoherently, “Tell you what, angel, never thought I’d make it here. They say murder is vile. But the gods should know better what’s a crime and what isn’t. Don’t you think so?”

 _Angel._ Sansa parroted the endearment in her mind, flattered and upset. _Not a bird anymore?_

He had called her little bird in their horrid bedchamber in the Castle of Justice. It was… She had been so appalled by the prospect of the upcoming bedding done by a man she didn’t know, in _public._ But now that she remembered the occasion, he had been polite and perhaps trying to be nice to her… in his peculiar fashion. But then he was conscious. Now, he was unwell and unaccountable.

Her brain finally registered his maundering about _crime._

“Are you talking about… about your crime…” She searched for a phrase that would be courteous and yet render the truth of his heinous action. “About the assassination you confessed?”

According to the interplanetary network, Sandor’s brother, Honourable Gregor Clegane, was the Lord Commander and the pride of  Dragonknights, the Great Guard of the Supreme Governor. The Guard patrolled the Seven Planets in dragonships, the last remnants of the great Targaryen civilisation which had come to ruin because its last scion, murdered in combat by the current Supreme Governor, was a mad schizophrenic who had nearly annihilated the entire Ninth Planet with a special brew of uncontrollable plasma.

No one except the Supreme Governor knew exactly how many ships there were nor their ancient names. Rumours spoke of one hundred, maybe more.

Malicious gossips claimed that Robert Baratheon had first ruined the space drives of all dragonships and buried them in the catacombs under his palace, stripped of all equipment, like skeletons or skulls of once mighty opponents.

Some years later, he had rediscovered reason and followed the wisdom of his counsellors, beginning to use the ships for the benefit of the realm.

No other space vessels were as good. Not as fast, nor as well armed with a unique sort of condensed fire that made laser beams and plasma bombs pale in comparison.

“Meraxes...” Sandor murmured what sounded like an ancient dragon name.

Normally the correct voice code of the pilot should wake the sensors and make the vessel utilisable.

Nothing happened.

 _Because he_ **_stole_ ** _it, and you’re a fool falling for the compliments of a convicted criminal you married for your own reasons, and not because it was the sacred will of the gods._

Belatedly, she realised that her action of redeeming a prisoner to prove her point could be considered very dishonest from the firm standpoint of the Faith. The old law prescribed a woman should save a man sentenced to die for believing him innocent.

Not to help herself.

But what else was she to do?

What Joffrey had done, knowingly or not, had been worse.

Very much unlike herself, she stopped chastising herself for her own shortcomings.

_Free to do what we want._

“Shit, Balerion!” Sandor exclaimed, with odd disappointment in his voice.

He looked and sounded fully conscious now and Sansa missed not being called an angel or a little bird or something else sweet and beautiful.

“Could you not use better language in my presence?” she complained. A good man had to guard his tongue before his wife.

“There’s nothing wrong with my choice of words,” he retorted defensively.

The ship came to life. Lights flashed correctly, in Sansa’s opinion, based on commands she could recognise. Beeps fell into place. It was functional and ready to operate.

“Gregor’s vessel,” he spat out, looking as if he would add another… awful expression, but then changed his mind. “The best and the largest ship in the fleet. They say Aegon Targaryen had flown it.”

Aegon was the legendary founder of the ruined Targaryen dynasty.

“Conferred to him by the Supreme Governor himself for his _noble_ deeds,” Sandor continued with outrage.

Sansa shook from the sheer hatred in his voice when he referred to his brother _._

“He was sent on a mission to the Second Planet, to _defuse_ an uprising,” her husband continued with more calm. “Guess what? Instead of flying there, he disappeared. I was given permission to chase him and retrieve Balerion. But I wasn’t to count on the Supreme Governor’s help if I came into trouble with local justice. No, Robert Baratheon didn’t want it _known_ that the pride of his Dragonknights had disobeyed him.”

Sansa was speechless. “You acted on _orders?_ Not on some… desire for revenge?”

“Both, I warn you,” he replied. “But only revenge wouldn’t cut it out for me. There had to be at least a semblance of justice in getting this world rid of Gregor.”

She didn’t, couldn’t understand him. “But why didn’t you tell?” she wondered discourteously. “My father is Robert Baratheon’s childhood friend. Surely the Supreme Governor wouldn’t have minded if Father knew of his commands.”

It was Sandor’s turn to look puzzled. “I wasn’t aware of this,” he squeezed out through his burned mouth. “But if I were, I might have kept my mouth shut all the same. I was given my orders on the condition not to betray the Supreme Governor’s confidence. I would have honoured my part of the bargain.”

This sounded… very honourable. To accept horrid death not to betray a liege lord…

She realised something else. “But then you’re a Dragonknight as well? I couldn’t find any data about it on the interplanetary network when I read about you and… and Gregor.” She was somehow unable to continue calling Gregor his brother.

“I was sworn to be one in secrecy, before embarking on my mission,” he outlined quietly. “I wouldn’t have a chance in a lesser ship. There are only two among dragonships that can _maybe_ measure up to Balerion. Meraxes and Vhagar. Vhagar was scheduled for repairs so I got Meraxes.”

“Which is also hidden somewhere here,” Sansa guessed.

Sandor nodded, closing his eyes.

She grabbed his face with more courage than she had in years, but also as tenderly as she could, needing him to stay awake for a while longer.

“Why telling _me_?” She remembered the answer before finishing her question. “I’m your wife, of course.”

A husband and a wife could exchange any information, being one soul… and one body. The rites have been performed though the marriage wasn’t properly sealed.

What were they?

“I would have told you anyway,” he said, cutting off her pious assumption.

“Why?”

“Because you asked and because you’ve put _your_ arse on the line for _me,_ independently of your other reasons. I owe you.”

“I don’t want you to feel like you owe me,” she protested, surprising herself by the vehemence of the feeling with which she stated that.

“What do you want from me?” he grumbled. “Other than sending you back home?”

“I… I wanted to help you since you asked me not to let you burn. On my honour as a Stark. I wanted to help myself, but also you. And then you returned my dress. I owe _you_.”

“This doesn’t answer my question,” he challenged her, cocking his great head sideways, full of curiosity. “But I do share your sentiment, my lady; you feeling like you owe me your gratitude and pity is the last thing _I_ want from you.”

“Who said anything about pity?!” She exclaimed.

He gave himself to silence, perhaps suffering pain.

_What kind of conversation is this?_

_What do you want from me?_

_What do I want from you?_

Time stopped, spreading like space in all directions after the big bang.

After a long while, she inquired, quieter than a mouse. “A kiss, what is it?”

Laying on the deck, he was dark and brooding, maybe taken by surprise, but not showing it. “You don’t know?” he asked warily.

“Before I met Joffrey, I didn’t want to marry. In my heart, I yearned to be a septa,” Sansa outlined weakly. “My mother didn't think it necessary to instruct me in the matters between husband and wife.”

The silence between them was dense, polluted with words and fears like the atmosphere on her beloved home planet.

He hesitated. “You don't appreciate my language skills,” he retorted mockingly.

The eerie silence continued until Sansa profoundly regretted ever having voiced her query.

“Might I show you instead?” he surprised her, asking with _extreme_ courtesy.

Sansa turned away from him, fighting an unexpected wave of disappointment. She didn’t mean to give him her innocence now, since he hadn’t already taken it.

“I can tell you that a kiss is not a bedding,” he reassured her behind her back, reading her mind, with a peculiar intonation  in his deep voice. “I could still return you unspoiled to your family, if that remains your wish.”

_Would you let me go?_

She turned back, sank to her knees to face him squarely and wondered with passion. “Would you do me this kindness?”

“I don’t know,” he stuttered, sounding as weak as she felt when frightened. “I’d try.”

They were married. It wasn’t a sin, whatever it was.

A kiss.

Her belly felt warm like coals in the hearth on a long winter night.

“Does it hurt?” she inquired.

“Shouldn’t.”

She closed her eyes and readied herself.

“Not like that,” he said with disappointment.

“Like what?” she murmured, enchanted by his voice.

“Look at me,” he demanded quietly.

She did.

And saw his lips nearing hers, felt his hands on the small of her back, sensed their bodies coming closer and closer until there was no space left between them.

The onset of proximity that had provoked horror and revulsion when she was naked below the waist, and knew herself to be watched, felt inexplicably welcome now that they were more acquainted, alone and she fully dressed.

When his lips seized hers, parting them gently, she had to strive to obey his wish to look instead of closing her eyes and surrendering to the sweet sensation as she would have wanted. His tongue tasted her, and she instinctively moved hers against his. Like this, their embrace, already captivating, changed its nature. Jumping into a different dimension, it acquired depth and rose in heat; turbulent as a flight through a space storm.

A long moment passed before he slowly pulled away.

She almost dragged him back to where he was, unwilling to stop this… kiss. But the propriety built in by education was stronger and she put her impulses on hold.

A woman shouldn't take initiative, especially nor against an express wish of her father, older brother or husband. Thankfully, baby brothers didn't count or Rickon and Bran would have turned her and Arya into their slaves.

She’d already taken too many initiatives: flying to the prison colony, invoking the old law. Her unseemly audacity had led her here, to her misfortune... -- which suddenly didn't seem like a disgrace at all.

“I can die a happy man,” he murmured, laying flat on his back, staring upwards. “Another pretty woman allowed me to kiss her with her eyes open. I had thought never to have that pleasure again.”

He blinked, looked weary, and closed his eyes.

The panic instantly returned to Sansa.

What was all this?

Why talk of dying _?_ He was supposed to be better after the medical encoder treatment!

“You look at _me_ now!” Sansa insisted. “I can’t fly a dragon class ship all by myself. I need help.”

He surprised her by obediently dragging himself to the bottom of the co-pilot seat on his arms because he couldn’t walk.

This was more than she expected, and probably more than he should do in his condition. He was so tall that he could reach the necessary consoles on the display above him from the floor.

“Doesn’t that _hurt?”_

“Sure,” he retorted and continued working, launching the systems and protocols necessary for take-off. She would have wasted a few hours, maybe a day to find them all and start them correctly.

“How can you go on? I thought you’d just tell me what to do!” She was both shocked and amazed by his actions.

He gave her a look like Arya might when she thought of Sansa as terribly stupid and incorrigibly old fashioned. “I’m used to it. I would have never gotten anywhere if I stopped to wail. I’ll live or I won’t. It doesn’t matter either way.”

“It matters to me.” As she said it, it was the truth.

A little spark in his eyes just _there_ , waking a tiny something in her heart.

No reply came.

“There is a spaceport on the south hemisphere,” she returned to the matter at hand. “It should be safe. I’d like to plot an encrypted course for it,” she announced cautiously and gave him a pleading look. “If you agree, of course, that I proceed in this way. My family will be there.”

She couldn’t tell the coordinates to an outsider who might have unwilling links to the enemies of the First Planet.

“Give it a go,” he surprised her with trust. “For the rest, you’re all set. The navigation buttons are in front of your seat, left from the helm.”

Her seat meant the pilot seat.

“I can’t...” she exhaled, her nervousness and fears suddenly taking over.

This was a dragonship, it was beyond her level. Not even Arya would be able to fly it.

She couldn’t possibly pilot _Balerion._ He had to do it, he was a man-

“I saw you pilot a _wolf_ shuttle, and shoot me with lasers on the prison colony,” he thundered, killing her indecision. “Someone has taught you how to do it. Don’t even try to convince me that you can’t.”

“I should be able to,” Sansa reacted honestly, still unsure of her own capacities, but ready to try.

The commands to input the coordinates were a bit different than on wolf class, but she did find her way after a longer while, establishing beyond doubt that father’s new design was based on this technology… though also developed differently… to confuse a possible opponent?

What kind of war was father preparing for?

The thought was chilly and disheartening.

Did she even know her father?

Sandor studied her all the time as she struggled with her task, ruining her concentration by the intensity of his moody looks, slowing her down.

But when they took off and before reaching the orbit, he was in deep slumber, helpless and weak, paying the toll for needless exertion that Mother always accused Father of, when his back hurt in the long winter evenings.

The stars were closer than they used to be and the flight path to Greywater Watch well set.

Sansa held the helm with quiet determination, not trusting the autopilot as her father had taught her.

In the solitude brought by waiting for the time to pass, she thought…

She dreamed…

Her husband had wanted to kiss her and was _happy_ that she’d let him.

He had to kiss her again.

And she’d ask him to allow her to close her eyes and become lost in the sensation of his arms wrapped around her, his body pressed against her, his lips on hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Irregular updates though hopefully faster than Alyssa's Tears used to be.
> 
> Feedback is welcome.


	6. Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much, hardlyfatal for the beta read.
> 
> Hardlyfatal has saved you all from at least a part of my incongruity and poor characterisations in this one.
> 
> I hope you're all reading her fics!
> 
> Any remaining mistakes and lack of continuity is my own fault.

**Six**

He dreamed of Sansa’s kiss when the onset of the space storm awoke him, shaking Balerion to his dragon core.

_ What core do the wolf ships have? _

He should ask his wife.

_ Sansa. _

A name as soft as herself and her pretty voice.

As fresh as her kiss.

She gazed calmly at the viewer screen, struggling to hold the helm steady and true to her encrypted coordinates of a safe haven on her home planet in case of total war.

If she was successful, they’d soon be back with her family.

But the universe listened to  _ his _ innermost wishes for a change, putting a significant obstacle on her meticulously-plotted path: a tempest, and a heavy one, by the looks of it, probably caused by warfare and lawless abandon in the use of heavy weaponry for the invasion of the First Planet.

It wasn’t as if he wanted her never to return.

_ Just not yet. _

He needed time.

_ For what? To grow a new head? _

Not even the most advanced genetic engineers and nanotechnologists employed by Tywin Lannister to arrange his soldiers to his liking could achieve such a drastic change.

The best he’d been offered were mechanical implants for  _ both  _ sides of his head and face, that would make him look like a snarling dog. But in spite of loving dogs better than people, and the image fitting with how he mostly felt, he had said no.

Perhaps he had been wrong.

Right or wrong, he was still a man, not just the monster he had eagerly allowed to be made out of him in his thirst for revenge.

_ A good husband shall take his wife in confidence in all things, son.  _ His grandfather’s advice banged loudly in his large head.

_ Right. _

He had to find his guts for that, have his leg patched first.

Or, better than useless talking, gather his courage to do what ought to be done. Heed her wishes, send her home with her honour intact, and never speak of himself.

She had been very clear about her preferences.

_ Could you change them, Sansa? _

Now, her brow was wrinkled, worried; her decision to run the ship manually both justified and refined. The autopilot would never work as efficiently in a storm.

_ Especially not on a dragonship. _

From Sandor’s experience with Meraxes, these peculiar vessels were...

_ Alive. _

This was, of course, an elaborate illusion, but he couldn’t think of a better description for their functioning.

More often than not, while piloting, Sandor felt he was in a belly of a giant beast. Standard, non-animal-designed transports reacted differently. Predictably. Doing what a man punched into their displays, no more, no less. Mere machines, they didn’t have a soul like dragon ones.

_ Right. _

People having a  _ soul _ was the greatest illusion of all. This was even more true for space vessels.

There were no souls. There was only flesh or metal.

Dragonships were a superior invention in space engineering mastered by the old dead Targs, and then exported from their planet of origin, Valyria, just before it exploded in a zillion pieces for largely unknown reasons. This despite that almost any archmaester of the Citadel won his noble title by writing yet another e-book of quantum physics theorising about the blast.

Be that as it may, he could never shake off the uncanny perception that Meraxes had always  _ adjusted _ to his commands, as well as to its surroundings.

He could only hope that Balerion didn’t adopt any of Gregor’s sweet nature.

Fortunately, all this was thoroughly impossible. His fears were unfounded just like hopes for good life he wouldn’t admit to having.

Besides, he snorted inwardly, Balerion’s new pilot was very different. It was perhaps a chance he was injured and Sansa had to take care of the ship.

He saw it in her sculpted features, clear as sunrise.

She  _ knew  _ what was coming.

He wondered if she’d ever seen a proper space storm, or if it was her piloting instructor who’d warned her against them.

This one wasn’t going to be small.

Pilot she could. Maybe she could do it through the disturbance.

His leg throbbed, but his head was clearer than it had been in years. Being awake and aware pleased him. Sleep restored most of his strength, and a maester would put him back into shape with three correct injections and a box of pills – it had been done before.

_Fixing_ _a human killing machine, expertly designed for Tywin Lannister, may he and his offers burn in seven hells._

Last thing he heard, his dwarf son had fired a laser bolt through his bowels while his old man shat, for reasons as unknown as the exact doom of Valyria.

Except that no one would write quantum physics books about it.

Kevan had seemed blessedly ignorant about Tywin’s death during Sandor’s trial on the First Planet, and Sandor saw no reason to enlighten him.  _ Let him find out himself about the sad fate of  _ **_his_ ** _ brother. _

He cleared his throat to address Sansa. A low, stinky rumble coming out of his mouth provoked a terrible suspicion that he had been sleeping for  _ days,  _ not using his voice nor brushing his teeth.

It meant they should have already reached her bloody outpost and they hadn’t.

_ Not good at all. _

“It’ll hit us hard,” he lectured her about the storm, grinning from ear to ear. His heart elated at the prospect of a brush with death. The wildness of the elements suited his own; he could rage with them at will.

“Does danger give you joy?” 

_ What the fuck? _

She sounded as if he had hurt her dignity; profoundly shocked by every sincere reaction he had displayed during their brief acquaintance. This noble habit of hers irritated him no end, making him irascible.

_ Except when she…  _ No, he wouldn’t think of that. His blood should stay in his head.

He nodded enthusiastically that he loved danger in order to avoid speaking. His hair shook wildly around his ugly mug. 

Belatedly, he realised that Sansa looked  _ bloodless _ and not only haughty. Her lovely hair was the only touch of colour on her dour expression.

He wished she dared wear red or purple. Or green. It would look lovely with her hair. He supposed she’d probably never put on any such ungodly, too-bright hue. A pretty blue colour was best he could hope for, once they returned to civilisation.

“I-” she began.

“You’re scared,” he assumed mockingly. “Guess what, you should be. A girl lost in a space storm... with me.”

It was her turn to nod, acquiescing briefly and courteously, thinning her pretty lips.

A thick gust of colourful ionic dust flew across the viewer screen. Balerion’s deck shook savagely.

“It’s coming for us,” he repeated the obvious, realising he  _ enjoyed  _ scaring her, feeling sick on that account, liking it nonetheless.

Not really scaring her, he corrected his faulty thoughts.

He loved ruining her facade, seeing the girl behind.

Despite her obvious distress, Sansa never softened her grip on the helm, nor did she veer from the course she had set.

Perhaps she was made of sterner stuff...

He wondered how long she had been at it.

How long had she been alone, and he passed out and useless like a sack of barley set aside for winter?

He was enthralled with her  _ focus _ on what she thought had to be done, despite her ridiculously stiff upbringing and her obvious limitations and fears.

Maybe that was why he wanted to travel with her for a while longer.

There were pretty women on every planet. Some would overlook his scars for his body or the newly acquired fancy title of a Dragonknight, which meant a lifetime in unnecessary luxury between two assignments, and a probable swift death in the line of duty.

His nearly by  _ burning. _

There was no poverty on the Seven Planets as there used to be in the remote past, but a Dragonknight’s widow, if she could establish that fact before the Supreme Governor, would inherit a lump sum and a pension that would make her richer than most, and independent from any man.

Women who appreciated his body didn’t require lessons in disposing freely of their own. But very few would be able to manually pilot Balerion.

Absurdly,  _ he _ desired to be further lectured in kissing. He had ventured into teaching Sansa that wisdom, and her response had been a lesson for himself.

To never play with fire in his heart.

“What’s the time?” he asked lazily when the storm hit them so hard that it nearly flopped Balerion around its main axis, breaking a part of its long black tail in a thousands of pieces.

“There’s no  _ clock _ on this ship,” she shot back with a mean streak in her melodious voice, enduring in her ungrateful task of keeping the helm steady.

She was right. There wasn’t. But dragonships always knew the time on the Ninth Planet and adjusted to it. Day and night routine.

When Balerion tumbled back into its initial position, she continued in a calmer tone. “A day has passed, I’d say.”

He envied her for being able to empty her anger in one outburst: he’d be thrilled if he could get rid of his rage so efficiently and quickly.

“We should have already arrived,” she strove to hide her first  _ tears _ the best she could.

_ Why do you have to cry all the time? _

Unwillingly, his heart hurt. Her moist eyes made him feel insufficient and guilty, despite that the storm could never be his fault.

“The coordinates of Greywater Watch are well set,” she rattled, struggling to control her emotion and not succeeding entirely. “I’m  _ positive _ . We learn them by heart when we’re eleven. But the turbulence keeps throwing us  _ off _ course, away from the planet, if I’m reading the instruments well. It’s possible that I don’t and-”

“Do they teach you to fly when you’re eleven?” he blurted, interrupting her rant. It was early, in comparison with Third or Ninth Planet. His instruction had started at twelve.|

“They begin at ten,” she retorted gently, correcting him.

In their short acquaintance, he had noticed that quoting customs and procedures she thought were correct, and following them, worked miracles for her self-confidence. He had seen soldiers who were like this.

He had never cared about correctness for its own sake. Only when it made sense.

If a man didn’t put plasma tablets in his own toilet, soon he’d swim in his shit. But there was no reason to do it twice a day because some accomplished maester or venerated commander claimed it was a standard, recommended procedure. Only when the toilet stank.

“Ten, truly?” he prompted her to continue.

_ Stop being upset, will you? Just hold the bloody helm. You’re doing fine. Better than you think, probably. _

“My sister could do it when she was nine, despite our parents’ strict prohibition. She spied on our older brother Robb’s lessons, and she’s precocious in anything…  _ non-womanly, _ ” Sansa concluded with a wrinkled nose.

Then she gazed at the ship and at the pilot seat she was occupying with ultimate disapproval, buying the crap about correct  _ womanly  _ behaviour more than any other woman he’d ever met.

Buying it so hard she wanted to be a  _ septa, _ to avoid making  _ any  _ mistake.

And then she met a pretty boy who turned her head around and left her for a fool.

He had to laugh at her, feeling superior and clever, unable to stop himself.

_ A bad thing. _

She gave him a look as if he had sprouted bat wings, then lifted her head high and shut up, closing herself in a tower of her righteous offense.

The storm would take them both wherever it wanted.

It struck him that maybe he could help her fly them through, since he was unable to take over. Occasionally, on a dragonship, a pedal had to be pressed, and he couldn’t even feel his wounded leg.

Sansa’s leg seemed to be in a correct position, as far as he could see under many layers of skirts. She did it so instinctively that he had to wonder if wolf ships were the same. Standard non-animal-designed vessels didn’t have foot commands. Only manual consoles.

“You don’t like this?” he wondered. “Having a dragonship under your feet? Most people would kill for the experience.”

“What’s there to like?” she reacted brusquely. “I… I just wish I didn’t have to do any of this,” she squeezed out through her teeth, thankfully returning her direction to the helm and the viewer screen, where it was less wasted than on him, especially at this moment.

He was a poor sight in any condition, and now moreso.

Pathetic and wounded.

He hadn’t been severely injured since he was 17, always taking an upper hand in any fight. But, to his surprise, Sansa’s father wasn’t a gnat, and he’d been exposed to drugs in the days preceding his forced wedding.

All their effect was washed away by now, leaving rage intact, alongside the constant, omnipresent desire to kill, or at least break things, as well as the other him: the one that longed for calm, and was ever unable to find it.

_ Maybe with- _

“Head away from the planet,” he instinctively barked an order. “Now! Sharply! Do it!”

There weren’t any stars in front of them as there should have been. This was very wrong.

His command came not a moment too late.

Sansa turned the helm when the invisible centre of the storm hit them hard, knocking out the life support and the gravity on deck. But it would have been worse, maybe fatal, had she stayed on course.

Sansa screamed, groping for the oxygen mask under her seat with her left hand.

Recommended procedure was to put it on before restoring life support and any other deficient systems.

But how the hell, without artificial gravity?

Taking advantage of the loss of gravity provided by the shock, he hovered to the consoles and restored life support with practised movements, immediately before he would have started to choke due to the lack of oxygen.

He didn’t waste time. His special jumpsuit helped, designed to keep some weight where there was none. He had paid dearly to old Archmaester Pycelle for this revolutionary feature. Now tested for the first time, it was worth the money.

A moment later, he landed harshly on the deck, near the pilot seat, all his body weight returning at once, on  _ top  _ of the special heaviness of his attire.

But that time, Sansa was wearing a mask correctly and had obviously managed to restore gravity.

Everything hurt at once. Body and soul.

“Well done,” he praised her, oddly pleased, in spite of the pain her  _ correct  _ action had caused him. Besides, it felt like a blessing not having to do  _ everything _ himself.

“But you just fell! I should have done it differently!” She was upset again, grabbing the helm with both hands, turning Balerion away from the storm and her home planet in order to avoid another strong turbulence. “You could have  _ choked _ without a mask. You… You, you, you!” She couldn’t finish.

He rose on his good knee next to her seat and took the mask off her face. Moving a strand of hair out of his way, he touched her cheek as gently as he knew how. “Hey, I’m fine. We both are. The worst is over.”

Another gust of deviant space nearly cut off Balerion’s wing. The ship roared.

“What’s that sound?” Sansa asked, afraid, and with good reason.

He had never liked dragon screeching. One day his own vessel might roast him alive. And this one had been Gregor’s.

“Dragonships occasionally emit it,” he explained. “Don’t ask me why. They act as if they are alive. Giant birds. Don’t worry. They aren’t.”

He aggressively reached for the consoles with his long arms, almost breaking some with the force of his actions.

“Plotting a new course,” he shouted. “Fourth Planet. We might have a chance of actually getting there. 

He stared at Sansa coldly. 

“I need a maester.”

“I have an aunt there,” Sansa’s voice trembled, her gaze betraying shock with how he manhandled Balerion. “She’s a bit peculiar since she was widowed, but she should help me if-”

“If your planet is ruined and your family condemned to death in absence by the Supreme Governor.”

“Why would he do it? My father is his best friend!” His wife couldn’t believe in the usual injustice of the world.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Sandor yelled, struggling with the display, fighting a wish to pull out all the cables and just  _ ruin  _ the damn thing. The commands to set course were typically too small for his fingers. At least there was space enough for bloody legs on a dragonship. Not that he needed it now, being crippled. “I saw Robert Baratheon rain fire and plasma on Greyjoys for less.  _ You _ designed  _ wolf  _ ships without his knowledge, amassing fire power. What do you think he’ll do when he finds out?”

“The Greyjoys apparently designed  _ kraken  _ ships,” she rightfully remarked. “ _ They  _ attacked us, maybe to revenge Balon’s rebellion. My father had led the army that had defeated them.” 

The girl’s logic was flawless. Absurdly, unrelated to anything she said or did right now, he yearned to kiss her.

But they had to brave the storm first.

“Now it’s taking us further away from every known planet or satellite,” Sansa commented, with fear, on the ship’s new course. 

Balerion had rejected Sandor’s commands to take them to the Fourth Planet, having a mind of its own.

There weren’t any celestial bodies in that direction. Only the black void of space, and the trade routes to the distant Essosi galaxy, used by smugglers, slavers and indecent people, according to stories Sandor didn’t believe in.

All people must use those routes, such as they were. But he had never been to Essos, so he couldn’t tell how it looked, nor find his way to reach it now.

“Take it back towards your safe haven, but not directly. Try go go alongside the heart of the storm,” he instructed. “We might be able to approach your planet from the other side once we’re past it.”

She nodded blindly, obeying, flying…  _ gallantly…  _ As though she were a buggering Dragonknight and not  _ him _ .

Sandor Clegane, altered genetically to become a perfect soldier.

Perfection had strange meanings for Tywin Lannister, as he had found out later to his sorrow.

Balerion shook and spat fire, clearing the waves of tempest in front. The remnants of its broken metallic tail twitched madly. Sandor’s fingers flew over the necessary buttons, always adjusting course to skirt the storm, as did Sansa’s left hand, he noticed. 

They were both governing the ship at the same time. It was as if they played piano with three hands. He’d probably suck in that, the keys being too small.

And throughout the storm she had managed to hold that helm.

After a long while, she got them out alright. A little bit later than he would have done it, and possibly on a rolling course to a different galaxy, but she did it. The risk was still there, and not due to any faulty move they made.

All instruments were slightly off mark after the storm, their precision dented.

(He wouldn’t tell her that, not wishing to make her fret in advance over things she couldn’t help, profoundly unable to stand her tears).

When the tempest finally abated, the one inside him continued. Now, at his leisure, he could admire her freely. Any resolve he had in relation to her seemed infinitely impossible to maintain, while she saw him as a necessary evil to prove her innocence.

And yet she’d asked him to kiss her.

Perhaps he could do it again.

“You can fly normally now, you know,” he said, mocking her deadly grip on the helm. “It’s over.”

She looked at him, blood returning to her cheeks from mounting fury. “I’m holding on the best I can.”

He could give her that.

Decisively, he switched the autopilot on. “Let it go for a while,” he counselled. “You’re too tired. You’ll make mistakes.”

She obeyed him, turning into a puddle of nerves and exhaustion in the pilot seat. Her hands shook wildly, hanging loose.

“You can get rid of the mask as well,” he remarked. It still hung around her neck on a string since he’d peeled it off her face. “Life support is fine, and it’s damn hot inside a dragonship. And the gown,” he added as a practical consideration. “What you wear under is warm enough.”

He had seen her conservatively long underwear in their bedchamber, thick and grey, an extra layer of clothing which was understandable on the First Planet with its cold climate, but here...

His jumpsuit regulated body temperature for a reason. It was cooling him down now.

She was blushing vigorously, looking like a sweet little alien.

“I’ve seen women wearing less, I can assure you,” he said, trying to alleviate her shyness.

“I don’t want to  _ know  _ that,” she protested. “That is unseemly and awful. And  _ vile  _ to speak like that to your wife. You ought to  _ pray _ . We barely escaped the space storm with our lives.”

His leg might still kill him if they didn’t find a maester soon, but he didn’t consider this fact worth mentioning.

His life mattered to her, didn’t it?

Probably anyone’s life would. She seemed the type to nurse birds who lost wings, and animals whose tails were cut off.

If she solved  _ her _ matters of life and death first. Her honour, seeing her family...

_ Selfish little bird. _

Egotism was understandable. It assured one’s survival.

He emitted an evil chuckle, directed both at her obvious self-interest in marrying him, and at illusions he began to weave in his head. 

_ That she is different. _

_ Good. _

_ Kind. _

_ And... _

The stars were back to on the viewer screen. Propulsion felt quite cranky, though. He should go to the engineering and do something about it, but he couldn’t walk. Balerion was flying with 30% of his systems online. It should be enough to get them somewhere. A different galaxy was probably out of the question. They were safe from that now, no matter what their actual course was.

He almost regretted that Essos wasn’t an option. It would take a long while to return Sansa home if they accidentally ventured that far.

_ Rest, I need rest. _

It occurred to him that the best place for that was near his wife. He dragged himself closer to her feet, embracing her legs.

Stiff and composed, she looked away. He didn’t understand at first. Then, he noticed her gown, a pile on the floor.

“You undressed!” He was shocked that she had actually obeyed him.

“Don’t stare at my underwear!” she complained.

“It would be a neat little jumpsuit if it was made of rubber and not of fabric,” he barked, irritated. “I only see your face, not even your bloody feet. Stop freaking out, will you?”

“How would you feel if you had to pilot a ship without trousers?” Her outrage continued.

“Done that.” He’d also piloted without gloves and boots when the temperature in Meraxes had dropped to 2 degrees Celsius by a malfunction; a highly uncomfortable, freezing experience. “But I see your point.”

“Do you?”

Why did he have to repeat everything twice? Didn’t she hear him the first time?

“What if you were told never to allow a man’s touch and then someone grabbed your legs?” Her lovely slim limbs were tense in his arms now, but no longer stiff.

_ Why? _

“I won’t look at your teats, I promise,” he vowed, surprising himself by how serious he was about it. 

He was apparently more addled than he thought. Or he wouldn’t have spoken like a gnat to his mistress, or a man to his woman. She was just some daddy’s girl who married him to help herself and who wanted to go home.

“I just want to rest near you,” he concluded.

“Why?” she whispered.

Puzzled or intrigued?

_ One way to tell. _

“Your presence helps,” he confessed as much as he was able to.

“With what?” She was definitely confused now.

_ With everything. _

He’d tell her one day. Maybe he could get drunk in Greywater Watch and spill it all out, see what she’d say.

**_Nothing,_ ** _ you idiot. She’d be afraid not to obey you, her  _ **_husband_ ** ,  _ like now, with her gown and underwear. _

“Would you sing to me?” he wondered with longing.  _ Would you do it willingly? _

“When we land,” she mumbled.

“That’ll be too late,” he murmured, disappointed.

She bent towards him, her face ending up so near his, so much closer and warmer than the distant, hot stars on the viewer screen. Glowing. Studying him with the keen interest of a nano-scientist.

He let her take a good, long look. Her expression revealed  _ nothing  _ of how she felt and he had to stifle an urge to ask what she thought of the ruin that used to be his cheek.

It wasn’t even the worst of him. The most horrible defect was inside him, swimming in his blood due to his own stupidity.

“Could you perhaps-” she slowly lowered her gaze from his mug to his shoulders, avoiding eye contact. “I’m so nervous. My mother hugs me differently when I become very stressed.”

He somehow managed to kneel. Probably they would amputate his leg for it. His arms instinctively flew around her small frame, enclosing her. “Like this?” he reacted.

The soft cotton of her underwear was so much thinner than her lavish gown. He could feel her warmth and her curves. He didn’t have to look to know where they were.

She let her head drop on his shoulder, burying her nose in the crook of his neck.

This hug was fine, he supposed.

“Why is this so… so...?” her questioning was barely audible, and yet reached him, sounding exacerbated to his big ears.

It would have been easier if she hadn’t said anything. He’d do his best to pretend he was her mother. But she had, worsening a tempest in his soul.

“It’s not bad, is it?” He asked enthusiastically.

It felt perfect to him.

His hands moved insistently up and down her back, grasping more of the perfection. He’d be unable to do much, with his wound, but the desire was there.

It wouldn’t go away easily, nor any time soon.

“Not like that, please,” she managed to rebel helplessly against his touch, twitching like a bird in his huge arms. “That’s too much.”

“An eye for an eye, my lady.” He sounded like a madman to himself. Words escaped him despite that he was completely sober. “You messed with my brain. I’m trying to return the favour.”

“I… I have to fly Balerion, remember?” she chirped ludicrously. “I need my wits about me.”

He hated to admit she was right.

His arms steadied on the small of her back. Only his thumbs continued with exploration, rubbing the narrowing of her waist in tiny movements.

She quieted, making shallow breaths against his collarbone.

“How can I ever let you go?” The words escaped him on a whim, together with all conscious thought.

Xxxxxxxx

An embrace... Not even a kiss. And here she was, flooded by sensations, a pond of weakness, lost in space with her wounded, sleeping husband.

What was it, this marriage of hers?

Not at all what she would have wanted for herself, and yet so much more.

It was like exploring a cave, she concluded. With every word and touch, she entered deeper, sank further. But the space beneath the surface was still limitless and dark, both tempting and frightening, waiting to be discovered.

The shared experience of the storm. The joint dash of hands to the consoles to sail through it. The changing colours of space dust. The danger and unearthly beauty of it all.

Loneliness lay heavy on her, now that he fainted again. But her fear didn’t return. Only determination to land safely, find a maester who could help him. She’d decide  _ later  _ how she truly felt about going home to her family, and about him not allowing her, or maybe letting her go after all.

Neither was appealing right now. She had to think of something else. Something proper that would make her happy, like becoming a septa.

Methodically, she ran the medical encoder along Sandor’s bad leg once more, hoping it would keep him stable for a while longer. Then she scurried to engineering. There was something wrong with propulsion, according to the blue lights flashing on the display.

Balerion drifted through the open space on autopilot, recovering from the storm.

She methodically unplugged all of the cables related to propulsion and connected them again.  _ The easy, fast solution in an emergency.  _ The technicians in space station would calibrate everything. While she laboured, she noticed clearly that weaponry systems were intertwined with speed settings. Just like on wolf ships… which were faster and more flexible in manoeuvres than Balerion, but had less firepower.

When she was done, the anger of the blue lights at her had ceased, and she was very proud of herself for not firing any weapon by mistake. Gods, she had shot at poor Sandor when they met! She was terribly embarrassed with that memory. She didn’t even  _ want  _ to launch any attack!

Had she made a mistake now, she could have blown away a wing or another vital part of her own ship.

Not hers. The Supreme Governor’s. A dragonship.

“Sandor!” she tried to wake him gently when she rejoined him on the main deck, but he wouldn’t answer.

Absent-mindedly, she prayed to any gods that listened. “Please, please, please, let me find help. For both of us.”

Paradoxically, it was good that he was unwell because worrying for someone else made it impossible to experience the familiar, paralysing fear of making a mistake, and suffering a terrible punishment for her sin.

Like her father’s sister before her, Aunt Lyanna, who had died young in exile.

_ On the Green Moon. _

Only a note of her death came to Father from the prison colony, and he hadn’t been allowed to retrieve her body.

She could see, now that she  _ thought _ of it and not only of herself, why Father had been  _ furious _ with her choice to marry a prisoner. The sad history of his sister was repeating itself with his older daughter...

The stars were quiet and the space empty, a silent and fearsome place.

The correct flying speed was calming her down, and she could almost, almost understand Arya’s love for piloting, despite longing for  _ firm  _ land under her feet.

And for a place where her husband would continue talking to her. Then she could decide how she felt about him.

The deadly tempest was less frightening when they were together. His hair hovering, weightless, around his pointedly marked, unique, unforgettable face, when he restored life support, not stopping to ensure his safety and put on a mask. His movements, lithe and gracious despite terrible injury. His stupid, intolerable barking and some signs of consideration for her, all at once.

She had almost forgotten that Sandor was a man who had killed his brother, following orders to apprehend him, but also because of vengeance _ ,  _ the dark feeling sanctioned by the gods.

Only they could wield it in their infinite wisdom, not mortal men.

A planet showed on the viewer screen too soon. Most likely she had made a grievous mistakes in plotting the course back to her home.

This looked more like the Fourth Planet, or one of its three moons, Stone, Snow or Sky. Or her Mother’s home on the Fifth Planet with many blue rivers.

Obviously, she reminded herself, from the sky, all planets and natural moons looked the same: beautifully blue.

It mattered not.

Even minor satellites had defence outposts, and Sandor could get help on any of them. 

Without thinking, she adjusted the course towards the celestial body she encountered. Soon, she entered the orbit, beginning an orderly descent.

To her surprise, there were no docking stations in space. She’d find one on the surface, she supposed. Fourth Planet was bizarre, and Aunt Lysa paranoid according to Mother. She’d do anything to make her defences both invincible and invisible.

Sandor was peacefully asleep. His leg  _ stank.  _ This wasn’t good.

Balerion lost propulsion again, lights flashing ominously blue.

_ Come on,  _ she urged the lifeless vessel,  _ you’re the best ship in the dragon fleet. If the storm didn’t break you, it couldn’t have ruined your sensors, could it? _

There was nothing left to do but wait for the interplanetary ride to finish abruptly, and for the advanced shock absorbers to do their job.

She sat next to Sandor on the floor and strapped both of them with long, adjustable safety belts from the pilot seat, praying loudly while Balerion slowly increased its landing speed beyond safety levels.

_ It’s only a crash, only a  _ **_minor_ ** _ crash. It’s a dragonship. It’s very strong. It can’t just get squashed. It  _ **_can’t_ ** _. _

_ We’ll survive this. We will. We  _ **_must_ ** _. _

Her head and ears hurt from the fury of  _ sound,  _ when Balerion hit the surface with a bang and a fire blast escaping its mouth. But, as soon as silence returned, she realised she could move all her limbs. 

Unstrapping herself, she put her gown back on, unblocked the hatch and stepped out.

She hoped she wouldn’t be attacked by unknown space aliens immediately upon arrival.

Robb and Bran always argued vehemently whether Aunt Lysa employed them or not. Bran thought she did, and Robb strongly opposed his theory.

Tears came back when she remembered her family.

She prayed to the gods that she had reached safety. Waddling out down the lowered hatch into the open air, the unexpected wave of heat hit her hard in her uncovered face.  _ Has the long summer returned so soon?  _ She tied her hair in a knot to feel it less. Beads of sweat came to her brow and her underwear stuck to her skin, clammy and uncomfortable.

Too late, before she could recoil and hide, she saw two young man watching her.

One was handsome with black unruly hair, neither quite curly nor straight, and the other was the fattest youth she’d ever seen, with very small eyes.

“I told you that the dragonships are  _ real,  _ Sam, _ ”  _ the handsome youth told his corpulent pig-eyed companion. “Look at it! We just lost all knowledge of them.”

Sam, the fat one nodded mutely. “Maybe,” he half agreed. “But your father wasn’t well when he died, you know,” he added after a while. “He was mad. As were you, since your parents’ funeral."

“My parents had died in a terrible accident,” the handsome one muttered angrily, not pleased at all with his friend’s statement.

“If he hadn’t been playing with fire-”

“Excuse me,” Sansa interrupted impatiently. Sandor needed help with urgency. “Could you take me to a maester? Are we on the Fourth Planet? My husband is sick.”

“There are no maesters here and we’ve never heard of any land called the Fourth Planet, not even in video games,” Sam explained with a confused look. “But if you mean  _ doctor _ , I am one. Just started my own practice.”

“Doctors stopped existing centuries ago,” she lectured him.

“Not here they didn’t, miss,” the doctor shook his head. “Where are you from?” He was eyeing her strangely.

She studied both of them in return, taking in the strange garments they wore in ungodly heat. Sand-coloured breeches with visible  _ pockets  _ that barely reached the knees, so improperly short were they _ ,  _ and dark, broad tunics with equally short sleeves and white letters printed in front mentioning… soccer.

_ The old name for football. _

It was the second biggest sport on the Seven Planets after wrestling in the pits.

_ Where am I? _

First thing first.

“Please, come with me,” she begged as sweetly as he knew how. “My husband is hurt.”

She led them back into Balerion’s womb.

The handsome one stared at ship’s systems with black eyes big as saucers while the doctor busied himself with the leg of Sandor’s jumpsuit and the injury under. 

“We have to cut it open and sew him up, miss,” he judged after a while. “Jon, come on, quit staring,” he told his friend. “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for this. Maybe they’re a shooting a strange film. It wouldn’t be the first time. The lady looks an actress,” he winked at Sansa. “She’ll tell us all about it later. Help me carry him.”

_ Jon _ obeyed diligently. They could barely lift Sandor, yet they managed, trudging out, and into the wood, as if heavy physical labour was nothing to them.

_ Used to hardship. _

Sansa followed on an autopilot, sweating from the unbelievable heat.

Belatedly, for her brains were  _ boiling _ , she remembered the necessary safety precautions when leaving a space ship unguarded. She scurried back, closed the hatch and switched on the cloaking mechanism, that should make it look like local, rather  _ exuberant _ shrubbery to anyone else who came by while she and Sandor were gone. Unless they bumped into it and hurt themselves. Hopefully no one would do that.

She studied the local trees. Their leaves were luscious, freshly green and sweet smelling. The birds sang softly, hidden in their nests during the hot part of the day. She had heard it could be very hot on the  _ Second  _ Planet in winter, but not this much. She was soaked in sweat under her gown.

Besides, Second Planet was on the opposite side of the realm from the First Planet and she couldn’t have flown that far without going into a stasis for sleeping.

Despite her growing bodily discomfort due to high temperature, she ran fast to catch up with Sandor, Jon and Sam.

The local youths seemed nice, but what if she was wrong? She was unable to fully trust her own judgement, after the experience with Joffrey. She wasn’t sure what to believe of Sandor, but she  _ was _ responsible for him.

_He’s in my care._ _I won’t fail him._

The heat made her pant and the nervousness wring her hands by the time she finally caught up with the men. She had never felt uglier.

This place was like no other on the Seven Planets.

“Where are we?” she asked breathlessly, wiping sweat from her face after a forced run.

“It’s obvious when you look at the trees, isn’t it?” Jon replied merrily, ignoring her obvious distress. “The charming colour is as famous as the constant good weather and local brandy,” he paused and stared at her with inscrutably  _ cold _ , black eyes. “Welcome to the Green Moon.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuation of first aid in understanding the planetary system called the Seven Planets which are actually nine.
> 
> First Planet - North
> 
> Second Planet - Dorne
> 
> Third Planet - Westerlands
> 
> Fourth Planet - Vale
> 
> Fifth Planet - Riverlands
> 
> Ninth Planet - King’s Landing and adjacent Crownlands
> 
> Green Moon - ???? But you know by now, don’t you? Can’t believe that I finally got SanSan there - I thought I’d manage in 3 chapters )))
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for reading ))


	7. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading.  
> I'm back to unbetaed madness, sorry for the mistakes, complicated/unintelligible plot and all that.  
> I will see if I can finish this story and my other hugely unnecessary long one you may or may not be familiar with.
> 
> There is another story I'm aware of at this site, Hope For Scars, where Sandor is a painter (I read two chapters so if later it developed differently sorry for the mistake). In this chapter of this story, visual arts play a role, however, the idea is a bit different, it was in my head before I saw Hope For Scars appear, some time in April/May 2017. In this story no one is really a talented artist in anything, and visual arts are only a prop, not the main topic.
> 
> With this, on we go.

**Seven**

After a long walk in the ruthless sunshine of the Green Moon, Sansa was seated uncomfortably in a shady, pleasantly cool waiting room painted mint green, in a building they called hospital, thinking of her father, her mother, her brothers and her only sister. Their faces and names were foremost on her mind, but, to her surprise, since she sat down, they slowly began to fade. She stood up and paced back and forth, striving to hold on to them so hard that she sweated profusely, despite the cold air being blown in through rather primitive-looking ventilation holes.

The fat doctor, Sam, burst in with a thick paper notebook and a black pen. "Write down their names!" he urged her.  "Draw their faces before you forget them. Describe them, their looks, their character. Do it for your family, for anyone you loved. So that you don't lose them, not completely. This happens to all newcomers. Because we… we can't go back to wherever we came from. Not ever. You'll also believe in strange and impossible things for a while, and then you'll settle down. You'll be fine, believe me. I was. I still am."

"What shall I believe in?" Sansa asked, confused by his passionate speech.

"Just do it now! Make notes! Draw!" Sam implored. "Don't waste time on questions."

By a force of ingrained habit, she obeyed. Not talented for visual arts, she wrote the names down first. Eddard. Catelyn. Robb. Arya. Bran. Rickon.

By the time she completed Rickon's name she could barely remember her father's face. So she drew it in haste, no matter how clumsily, and she sketched Rickon next, the chubby toddler, and then her elegant mother with long auburn hair, noting down that it had the same hue as her own, though it was less curly. 

Then she made Robb and Bran who had mother's hair and father's face: Robb was a man, and Bran a fast growing boy who wanted to be a pilot.

Finally, she depicted Arya who had father's eyes, grey eyes, she remembered, writing down the colour, not blue like Sansa and the rest. She couldn't remember her hair, except that it wasn’t auburn, and it had to be long because Arya was a girl. She put a question mark next to it. _Black? Brown?_ she wrote hesitantly. Brown was more likely, she concluded, underlining the word twice.

Then, she remembered the big black spaceship in form of a fire-breathing dragon. She had been piloting it for days, through a menacing storm, with a companion who annoyed her and questioned her competencies.  _ Why couldn't he simply have helped her?  _ He even did, sort of, but his dismissiveness had made her feel worthless and insecure about any abilities she might have.

The return to her family had been the sole, unwavering objective on her mind. One man’s rudeness, no matter how disconcerting, couldn't have turned her attention away from it. Not even her own fears could have achieved that. Her goal had given her the focus to improvise and input correct commands, on the basis of her limited knowledge of space technology. It had given her the strength to hold the helm steady while the tempest raged, nearly destroying the ship. She had landed _ , _ safe and sound.

But to a wrong place. The Green Moon. Not to Greywater Watch where she had been heading, to reunite with her family after the outbreak of total war on her planet. She had failed. All her efforts were in vain. She took a pen to draw the dragonship and stopped after the first line, her memory of it vanishing.

Spaceships didn't exist, did they?

She had already forgotten her irritable travel companion, and for some reason she didn’t even want to make an effort to remember him. Probably she had invented him.

Did she even have a family?

Yes, she could still remember all of them. Her recollections now resembled an old dream she had many times. In a frenzy, she continued drawing them in different positions and writing down the details of their looks, ages and character traits until she ran out of paper and her head was terrifyingly empty. She felt as though her parents and her siblings had never existed. Only the notebook witnessed otherwise. She clutched the precious possession to her chest and exhaled deeply.

"There, you’ve done it," Sam approved with contentment. "You'll have plenty of time to perfection your images and use special software to reconstruct them in colour later on."

"Spaceships don't exist, do they?" she wondered timidly.

"No," Sam shook his head, "nor aliens or visitors from outer space. All newcomers arrive from seven heavens. They are sent by the gods to the Green Moon to pay for their sins. That’s why they are parted from their families and the perfect life they enjoyed. We believe we’ll meet them again when we die, and the images we conserve will help us recognise them.”

She couldn't remember having sinned. "You’re a newcomer as well, aren't you?" she asked. "What have you done?"

"I've forgotten," Sam shrugged. "But it must have been something grave or the gods wouldn't have sent me back. But it's not so bad here, you'll see. A tad too hot, but for the rest it's fine. We have good government and laws, and we're free."

She couldn't understand why freedom was important.

"Maybe there are spaceships in heaven," she announced dreamily.

"It's okay," the young fat doctor nodded like a good father. "You’ll know it's not like that in a while." After a pause, he asked, "Don’t you want to see your husband now? You were very concerned for him and his injury. You’d be glad to hear that he’ll make a full recovery after a surgery performed by my much more experienced colleague, Dr Marwyn. And that despite a very close brush with death.”

Cold dread crept into Sansa. She didn't remember being married. "Husband?" she stuttered.

The door through which Sam had just entered acquired a different meaning. That would be the room of the patient after the healing procedure. Her husband. He was the reason she was in the waiting room to start with. “Of course, my husband. I'm just still exhausted from our voyage so I reacted poorly,” she argued feebly, unable to remember the most important man in her life. “Please forgive my manners.”

Sam scratched his small, rounded head. "It’s very rare for a married couple to arrive together,” he declared. “It has happened only once more in the past we can remember."

From his words, Sansa remembered herself in the luscious green wood following after Sam and another youth, Jon, both carrying a huge, older man in a dark spacesuit whose face was hidden by a curtain of black hair.

_ Oh. _

She remembered him now, somewhat, not in great detail. Ugly. Angry. Disfigured. Her outspoken travel companion. Her  _ husband. _

"Who was the other couple?" she asked only to gain time to overcome her shock with the idea of having such husband before she faced him. A true lady wouldn’t offend anyone on account of their looks.

A very serious voice spoke from the far corner of the waiting room, behind Sansa’s back. "My parents." 

She turned her head back sharply and noticed Jon who continued, "Mother arrived first and father after her. They are dead now. Don't listen to Sam, miss. There  _ are  _ spaceships. We're just underdeveloped and too stupid to see them. My father believed in it until his dying day. He said he could see them clearly in his dreams."

"Your mother didn't?" she guessed.

Jon shook his head. "No, but she wouldn't say it too loudly not to make father sad. It doesn’t matter. I know I'll probably die crazy like him. Mental diseases are hereditary."

This young man looked very rational to Sansa and, now that she looked at him more closely,  _ very _ familiar. "Has everyone who lives here arrived from heavens?" she asked next.

"No," Sam replied. "Most people are born here, like Jon. It's easier for them. They haven’t lost anything.”

A deep, raucous voice hollered savagely behind the closed door. "Fine! I heard you. Now get out of here!"

"Sir, I was just trying to help," a shrill female voice protested, not intimidated. A young woman of Sansa’s age, with bright orange hair, in an impeccably clean white suit, stormed out of the room. "I've never seen a more rude guy,” she rattled at Sam as though he was guilty for the patient’s outburst. “It's past time for me to change jobs. There are other hospitals that don’t take in them bloody newcomers."

"Come on Ygritte," Sam said, "this guy here has almost died, and he’s lucky to still have his leg. He’s like this because of the pain. We should administer more painkillers to him.”

"Get lost!" the horrible voice repeating insults from his sickbed was familiar, and Sansa recalled vividly her husband's peculiar nature. Angry in a different way than anyone else she had ever met.

"This patient gives shit about the pain in his leg! He's all self-pity about his ugly mug,” Ygritte was as merciless as Sansa's husband in her assessment of facts. “Guess what? Who cares! He goes to Craster's and they'll find him pretty."

“What’s Craster’s?” Sansa interrupted.

“A brothel,” Sam explained. “It’s a house where mostly women, but nowadays also men, provide sex services for money to those who can’t get them for free or are too lazy to go through the customs of dating in order to satisfy their appetites. From what we have gathered, prostitution doesn’t exist in seven heavens, but it’s quite common on the Green Moon.”

“I see,” Sansa remarked carefully, not understanding half of what she was being told.

“No you don’t, not yet, miss, but you will,” Ygritte mothered her, pushing first a leaflet and then also a proper book with hardcover into Sansa's hands, right next to the precious notebook with memories. “This little handout tells you, among other useful customs, all you need to know about dating, marriage and divorce on the Green Moon. Also about sex workers and their role. An indispensable read for your successful adjustment to our society, I have to add. The book is about our system of elected government and your rights under it. Most newcomers read the first one and throw away the second. If you choose to do that, please pay attention to use the large orange bins for paper trash. Resources are scarce on the Green Moon”

"You also gave  _ him _ the notebook, the pen and both publications," Sam checked methodically.

"Yes, sir, the protocol for newcomers was fulfilled to the letter. I do the job I’m paid for," Ygritte replied defensively. Then, she stared Sansa down, assessing her attire. "Shall we find you some clothes, miss? Yours are ridiculous, not to mention too warm."

Sansa agreed, mostly because being ushered in an unknown direction by this noisy woman was much better than meeting her husband. A man she should obey in all things. Or should she? In truth, she wasn’t sure how she ought to behave. She had forgotten it. And she didn’t write down anything about marriage customs in heavens, in those first hours when she was still herself.

“I’d divorce him if I were you,” the girl rattled tiredly as they walked down perfectly clean mint green corridors. “What did you see in him? Not a bad body but, by the old gods, what an attitude!”

“I don’t remember,” Sansa replied timidly, wondering what a divorce was.

“You wouldn’t, would you? I’m so sorry. I know it must be difficult for you newcomers. I was born here, like Jon,” her voice turned thick when she said Jon’s name. “Well, Jon and me aren’t quite the same," she corrected herself. "My parents were also born here. And my grandparents. No newcomers in my family for centuries. Come in, we're here.”

After Ygritte, Sansa ventured into a large, square hall with ceiling a hundred feet high, Complex, old-fashioned machinery with many ugly tubes and pipes climbed alongside the walls, looking like a congregation of many-legged, metallic spiders. Racks and shelves full of diverse garments occupied the middle. Sleeveless tunics and shorts like those worn by Jon and Sam. A pile of miniature tunics and very tight trousers, both long and short, too tiny for most men. They had to be for… for women. Sansa was shocked because such attire was clearly inappropriate, but since she’d forgotten the reasons for it, she tried hard not to care.

She realised that Ygritte was wearing such super-narrow dark blue trousers under her white suit: they were tighter than space jumpsuits that didn’t exist, despite that Sansa occasionally remembered them. 

"This place used to be a factory," Ygritte explained proudly. "But now we don't have those anymore. Our economy is based on services. Nothing is produced, everything is recycled. I don't know very well how, but you can read about in the government book. I think that somehow the savages on the Stony Shore take care of all the remaining manufacturing, but I’m by no means an expert in that.”

On a second glance, there was another section with female garments in the former factory, full of shapeless, baggy gowns, in colours ranging from black and dark blue to grey and mud brown. They looked very poor.

“This is what newcomers choose?” Sansa asked, studying the similar cut of her own dirty, woollen dress which was nonetheless somewhat more adjusted to her body and made of incredibly finer and prettier fabric than anything the Green Moon had to offer.

Ygritte just nodded. “Take your time. The women from seven heavens are always hesitant. Trust me, it's the same what you wear. No one cares what it is. Mostly it's too hot to be dressed at all, but the fabric sucks up at least some of the sweat, and together with sunscreen it helps against burning.”

Sansa's predicament was hopeless. Every garment she considered was embarrassingly ugly, and she wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing it. Underwear was… well… it consisted of two pieces so tiny that only her most private parts would be covered. It was all the same model, even more so than clothing. Thankfully, the tops had fat, smooth lining, unlike soft cotton underwear she still had on from seven heavens. Her nipples wouldn’t be visible if she wore only that top and something over it. The question was what. She chose dark blue underwear and set it aside.

After a desperate search of almost two hours, she found a blue-lilac  _ male _ tunic and closed herself in a terribly claustrophobic little box with a door and mirror Ygritte called a changing cabin. Afraid and nervous, she was nonetheless pleased to see that the short sleeves of the tunic reached her elbows, and the bottom edge almost her knees. It showed more of her body shape than the mud brown dresses for newcomers, but far less than horrible tiny elastic shirts which seemed to be fashionable for ladies on the Green Moon. Under, she put on those dark blue trousers like Ygritte had, mainly for nostalgic reasons. They were too tight, but her skin was well hidden, due to fabric that was almost as thick as the plastic fibre of those non-existent jumpsuits she continued to remember. Her legs continued sweating, especially on their upper part, but her head and shoulders enjoyed a much more pleasant temperature. Simple, flat, cream-coloured leather shoes completed her new look, and she was mildly pleased with herself.

Ygritte approved. “You have taste, you know. Maybe you could help me decide next time I’m invited on a date.”

“What’s a date?” Sansa blurted, folding her old dress so that it became a bundle in which she would carry her notebook and the publications welcoming her to the Green Moon.

“It’s what people do instead of getting married. Marriage is old fashioned and serves no purpose. Lots of people still marry because they are sentimental, but they rarely stay together for longer than a year after. They usually separate and divorce in about six months time, I'd say. They go to Tormund's office, who’s the President now, and arrange the paperwork in a matter of days.”

“Oh,” Sansa said. “What did my husband say to that?”

“He didn’t let me talk about our customs, and frankly to me he looks as if he can’t write or read. He wouldn’t be the first illiterate newcomer. Imagine, some were only able to type words on screen! Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“Right,” Sansa dragged her feet to the waiting room, still in no hurry to meet the man in question.

Sam stood at the door. “Might I do a brief blood test on you before you see him?” he demanded. “Just to check that you are… okay.”

She didn’t dare disobey. The fat doctor looked very worried. He led her into a spacious office with some odd equipment. She stared at one black thing.

“It’s a microscope, miss,” Sam explained, “I suppose they wouldn’t have them in heavens.”

Sansa believed there were spaceships in her homeland, and instruments far more advanced that this one, but she opted not to speak madness.

“Take a look, please,” he encouraged her to use the primitive device.

She looked through the microscope. On a miniature glass, minuscule creatures ran like ants in a drop of red liquid.

“Your husband’s blood,” Sam clarified, spying her intently for any reaction.

“What’s in it?” she inquired, not knowing.

“I wish I knew,” Sam exhaled. “I don’t suppose you remember.”

She shook her head. She had no idea. “Is he very ill because of that?” she wondered and realised she didn’t want him to be hurt or sick, despite her wish to avoid him for a little while.

“He’ll soon be healthy like a tree when his leg heals,” Sam explained. “His face can’t be helped, if you know what I mean. But this, this… May I?”

He produced a needle and took Sansa’s arm. She closed her eyes and ignored the sting, refusing to watch her blood being spilled into a tiny ampoule. Soon, her sample was under another microscope.

Sam was both disappointed and relieved with her results. “Yours is normal, like mine, or anyone else’s I’ve seen. If your husband agrees, I’d like to monitor him closely, in case there are side effects to… to whatever this disorder is. I… I wouldn’t mention this result to anyone on the Green Moon… It could give him problems… lead to questions that hadn’t been asked for centuries. Not since last winter. Maybe you could explain this to him?”

“Why not you?”

“Well, he’s got an attitude,” Sam added dryly, rubbing his forehead.

Sansa immediately noticed a blue spot and a bulge on that place.

“He didn’t hit you, did he?” she asked indignantly, profoundly shocked.

“No,” Sam replied. “He scared me, I left hastily and collided with a wall.”

Sansa had to stifle a laugh.

She felt almost brave enough to go and see her husband.

When she opened the door, his room was conquered by dusk. No lights were on. The heat was slowly creeping into the hospital despite the ventilation, at the end of a long summer day. Her new garments made the ambiance almost bearable. Crossing the doorstep with reticence, she wondered how he would treat her, making only a few cautious steps in.

He was laying peacefully with his eyes closed, his large chest rising and falling. Ugly and… At her mercy, somehow.

She cleared her throat and tried to remember his name. In vain. She should have asked Sam. His face  was exactly as she expected it to be, now that she was looking at him. To her surprise, despite the objective monstrosity of his disfigurement, it wasn't hard to observe him at all. Like this, he didn’t frighten her. He made a peculiar impression on her, one she couldn’t quite describe; not entirely unpleasant, and yet profoundly disquieting.

Despite this odd, restless feeling he gave her, in only a few hours on her own, she had forgotten all about him from before their arrival to the Green Moon. On the contrary, the faces of her family still lingered in her head, albeit pale and unclear.

She coughed loudly to reveal her presence, unable to call him by his name.

“Come in, girl,” he said, not opening his eyes. “I heard your steps.”

He sounded careless. This was better than chasing her away, she supposed. She approached cautiously. Dropping the bundle with her books on the floor, she sat on the bed.

Relaxed, he looked almost benign to her. On an impulse, she took his hand, large and very warm, and just a little hairy above the wrist.

His eyes snapped open, and she could swear he flinched from her touch, and then controlled himself, staying calm and appearing indifferent to her actions. Grey eyes, she noticed, like she just wrote down for two lost members of her beloved family.

Belatedly, she noticed a chair where she could or maybe should have sat, rather than on his bed.

She suddenly remembered this was her mother’s gesture when father was sick with fever, and she had subconsciously imitated it. Her husband was scared by it, it seemed. If he was her husband at all. Maybe she misremembered.

“Does your leg hurt?” she asked to say something.

“So what?” he blurted dryly, studying her face with some quiet intent of his, not scaring her or yelling at her as he had done with everyone else who had entered his room.

His hand stayed in hers, and after her initial trespassing, she didn't dare, no, she realised she didn’t want to move hers. His free arm rose towards her in a slow, but determined gesture, fingers touching a loose strand of her hair which had fallen to her waist.

“You're real,” he murmured, almost devotedly, with strange reverence in his hoarse voice. “Unbelievable. I thought… Never mind. I’m still drugged, right? I was under anesthesia for the procedure.” He sounded as if he strove to explain this world to himself.

This unexpected softness was even worse than if he shouted at her. It killed her resolve to do anything else except sitting idly next to him and listening to his deep, raspy voice. Was this the same man who had made her feel worthless in the spaceship?

He must have been. Then again, spaceships didn’t exist. Everything was in her head.

They had time now, she supposed. She could make him talk to her a little bit more, see how he truly was.

“Why are we here?” she whispered. “Do you remember? What have we done to deserve being banished from heavens?”

“I’d say I probably deserve that,” her husband quipped darkly, “but the details of my transgressions escape me. The ginger girl who nursed me believed I’d be in prison very soon. How did she put it? That the death penalty was too good for the likes of me.”

He still wasn’t hurling insults at her, or frightening her, or doing anything else awful.

He was just talking to her and joking about himself.

“Did you… did you draw a lot?” she pointed at the closed notebook on his bedside table, wondering how his family looked and if they were all black haired and very tall. Or if they all had scars like him.

He shook his head. “I can’t draw.”

“Same here,” she smiled knowingly. “I’d better not show my work to anyone."

He made a very ugly grimace that could have been his smile. Without another word, he sat up brusquely, looking tense. Only his hand remained calm, stuck in hers. She took it as a sign to retrieve her palm.

“You should lay down,” she tried to tell him.

“The doctor mentioned it. The farthest I can go is to take a piss. There’s no need to repeat,” he rasped irreverently. “Guess what. I won’t stay put. I’ll go and look for a job.”

Disappointed by his tone, she decided  _ this _ was how he normally was, acid and abrasive, missing his previous, quiet attitude.

“A job?” she echoed.

"Didn't you read the stuff they gave you?" he gestured at the familiar leaflet about the customs of the Green Moon laying open on his bedding. "I thought you would."

He must have been reading when she arrived so apparently Ygritte was wrong: he wasn’t an analphabet. Her own copy being wrapped in her bundle, she grasped his and read the first, open page.

There, she learned she should find a job as well because men on the Green Moon didn’t finance women anymore - that was in distant past. Everyone had to pay for their own expenses and share equally the burden of work.

_ Oh. _

Her head began to hurt, empty and unsettled. What was she to do? 

“We could look together,” she said carefully. “Unless you want a divorce.”

“What’s that?” he blurted. “Food?” 

She realised he didn’t read any further from page one, just like she hadn't even begun processing the pile of information they were given, and only knew what Ygritte had told her.

“I’m not certain,” Sansa skipped the truth on an impulse, unable to tell herself why she did it. Staying married to this man was unappealing. Divorcing didn’t sound good either at this moment. Then she might be all alone on the Green Moon. A newcomer. “Are you hungry?" she asked to continue the conversation. "I’m starving.” The last part wasn’t a lie.

“No strange food for me,” he rejected the idea. “I need to sober up after the healing procedure.”

He didn't say surgery like Sam. He was like her, using the same words. Maybe he also suffered from false memories of heavens populated by spaceships that would mar his existence on the Green Moon, until he had finally forgotten them.

She concluded she could always divorce him later, after she understood better what she wanted. That procedure was allowed here and it seemed like a simple one, involving a visit to the office of a high magistrate and some paperwork. She had yet to understand why they needed paperwork. Wasn’t everything in computers?

So far, her husband had been oddly respectuous towards her. It wasn’t unwelcome to sense his interest in her. Especially his reserved attitude tickled her curiosity. She’d ask him what he liked, what he did in the past, if it weren’t pointless. None of them would remember anything from before their arrival to the Green Moon, not even their marriage. Only the notes they took were left of their past. There was no way back.

_ But what if there is? _

_ What if there are spaceships, other planets and aliens? And a path back to seven heavens? _

_ To my family? _

“I don’t think I did anything wrong, you know,” she declared. “I just can’t imagine that I have sinned so severely to be punished by the gods.”

Sandor shrugged, "How should i know? I suppose you might, for yourself."

It occurred to her that maybe she was here because of  _ his _ sins?  _ It can’t be. _ The gods didn’t expulse couples just because they were married. Only sinners were banished, Sam was very clear on that.

Maybe she had made a mistake when she told Sam and Jon she was married to the man who was condemned to fall from heavens at the same time as she.

Husband was someone important, solid, profoundly linked to a wife. This man was almost a foreigner to her, though not a complete one. Well, they could divorce, she reiterated the possibility in her mind. This didn’t seem like a right thing to do for Sansa, but here, on the Green Moon, it could be done. It was habitual, done every day. People rarely stayed married for more than a year. It was old-fashioned to do so.

Sandor lowered his huge legs from bed onto the mint green floor. They made him wear a broad white tunic made of thin, transparent tissue that resembled paper, not quite reaching his knees. Sweat was visible around his neck and under his hair. His wounded leg was bandaged from hip to toe.

“You can’t leave,” she admonished him. “The doctor won’t let you. It’s too soon after the surgery.”

“What’s a surgery?” he asked very suspiciously. “Have they done anything else except administering sleeping drugs and fixing my leg with scanners?”

Scanners didn’t exist, did they?

But he knew the word, just like she did.

They were both newcomers on the Green Moon, seeing impossible visions, sharing memories of unknown heavens. They would forget them soon.  _ Or maybe we won’t.  _ Maybe he was the only person who could somehow help her return to her family before she died here.

If they could find the ship…

_ Shut up, Sansa. Spaceships don’t exist. _

“They say surgery for healing procedure,” she clarified. “You’re fortunate it was done in time. You could have become crippled.”

Defiant, Sandor stood up, transferring all his weight on his bad leg on purpose. “It’s better than it was, I’ll give them that,” he grumbled.

Indifferent to his pain, just like Ygritte had said. Yet he had nearly died from it. How could he-

“I’ll live,” he rumbled, interrupting her thoughts, and stomped out of the room without any further explanations. She noticed a slight limp in his step, and her heart hurt for him, because he was so obviously in pain, and he wouldn't even admit it, or let  _ her _ , or  _ anyone, _ tend to him in any way.

She didn’t even have time to tell him about his peculiar medical condition, the tiny bugs in his blood.

Wondering if he went to make water, or if he just  _ left  _ her on her own because husbands didn’t have to provide for their wives in this place, she stood up nervously, pushing his bedside table. His notebook fell open to the floor. The first two pages were empty. Had he no family to remember? 

She lifted it. Before she could close it and rearrange it neatly, she noticed that the two pages in the middle were filled with very rudimentary, childlike images of tiny, unrecognisable people, much less realistic than her depictions of her family. The largest drawing was an extremely awkward, and yet deliberately accented sketch of a slender woman with long, wavy hair, done with only a few markedly black, almost desperate lines, one of which had cut through the paper like a razor blade.

The woman held a helm in front of a panel with many buttons and a viewing screen in front.

It was her and the spaceship she remembered piloting. One word was written under the drawing of her, in letters large as unpeeled potatoes.  _ Brave. _

Instead of his family, his loved ones, the important people for him…

The person he had drawn most prominently was her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuation of first aid in understanding the planetary system called the Seven Planets which are actually nine.
> 
> First Planet - North
> 
> Second Planet - Dorne
> 
> Third Planet - Westerlands
> 
> Fourth Planet - Vale
> 
> Fifth Planet - Riverlands
> 
> Ninth Planet - King’s Landing and adjacent Crownlands
> 
> Green Moon - The Wall and the lands beyond the Wall. The satellite of the First Planet which is the North.
> 
>  


	8. Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, hardlyfatal, for your time, your patience and for being back as my beta reader for this story.

**Eight**

He needed a piss to start getting rid of whatever liquid poison the maesters had injected him for the healing procedure. 

_ Not maesters, doctors, _ he had to remind himself. 

Healing procedures were called ‘surgeries’ on the Green Moon, and maesters didn’t exist. Except in his vague dreams of non-existent future he felt he was coming from.

He’d never believe he arrived from the heavens. This couldn’t be true in his case. It was just plain wrong.

Also, more importantly, he needed some time alone to get himself together, a moment away from the beautiful, sweet woman who had sat casually on his sickbed, acting like his wife, holding his hand.

And then asked him in cold blood if he wanted a  _ divorce _ while he still pondered if he had only dreamt of being married to her or if it was somehow true.

_ I’m married to Sansa. _

Her name was as beautiful as the lady who carried it.

_ If she mentioned divorce, then we must be married, right? _

_ It has to be true. _

Of course he had read in no time the bloody books about the local customs on the Green Moon, one stranger than the other. He needed to know what dangers lurked in this place, what fires awaited him. Didn't she read it all while he was sedated? Was she too stupid to understand Common Tongue? Or did she mislead him on purpose? Did she play ignorant after his intentionally dumb query if divorce was food? Did she backtrack on her initial plan to get rid of him, wishing to keep him chained to herself?

The latter possibility pleased him tremendously, caressing some deep, insatiably miserable pores in his being. After pissing, he pulled his shorts up in one abrupt go and looked at his face in the mirror before leaving the privy.

It was just as he remembered it. The virus of forgetfulness of the Green Moon had as much effect on  _ that _ memory as on his undeniable deformity. Yet he had forgotten how he had earned it. Only imprecise awareness that it was important to know the cause of his burns lingered in his big head. But strive as he might, he couldn’t recall their origin.

He stroke a ridge leading to his missing ear, harsh like old leather.

The feel of his ruined face instantly made him hate himself for his pitiful basking in the idea that a pretty woman might want to keep him. Yeah, maybe as an ugly, furry pet, to warm her feet at night by sleeping on them.

He didn’t want anyone’s pity. Nor did he want to be lied to: he hated being manipulated, used. But, just like the origin of his burns, he had forgotten the reasons for this particular loathing.

It was oddly hard to discover that, now that he had somehow succeeded in marrying a woman that made his head turn like mad, he ended up in a place where  _ divorce  _ existed. A marriage could be terminated at any moment. Furthermore, the books lectured the newcomers severely against possible transgressions at home. A wife wasn’t the husband’s property. He couldn’t do with her as he pleased nor was he infallible or even wiser for being male. She wasn't expected to obey him. She could talk back and give equally valid opinions. All people could cook and clean, not only women. And so on, and so forth.

Sandor found the stuff obtrusive and boring.

Besides, the books were strangely silent about details that would now surely catch his interest. What was actually expected and considered proper in marriage on the Green Moon? After five pages of repetitive outcries about what wasn’t?

He stopped his pointless musings. Nothing and no one would give him the answers he needed: he’d have to find them on his own.

As an afterthought, he washed his hands. Normally he wouldn't for there was no real need. He’d use a decontamination agent had he been in touch with something truly toxic and dangerous.

But now a fine-smelling woman waited for him. Soap would do. Besides, he snorted dismissively, they probably didn't have any more advanced cleaning products on the Green Moon.

Opening the privy door to get out, he bumped into one of the doctors, the fat boy, who instantly cringed from him in fear.

“Did your wife tell you, sir?” The fatty surprised Sandor by being brave enough to speak. “About your condition, I mean?”

_ Wife…  _ Another confirmation of his unusual dreams and hopes both flattered him and made him extremely irascible.

Sansa was free to divorce him if he wasn't to her liking, and he had no idea how he ought to behave in marriage in order to avoid it. According to the local customs of the Green Moon, the infallible male protector, providing a living for his wife who stayed at home and did nothing except domestic chores (something that rang vaguely like an ideal from the future he was coming from), wouldn't fit the bill here. This was an obsolete attitude.

He did agree with the bloody book on one detail. No one was infallible. That was a simple truth and not a matter of custom. Whoever claimed otherwise was a buggering liar.

Besides, there was one serious problem with the entire crazy idea of being married. Had he put his cock between those legs, looking at her face while he did it? Had she looked back at him with longing and pleasure? He didn’t think it was something he could ever forget. He would have made a bloody drawing of it, he was certain. On the level of a three year old, like all the rest of his failed artistic attempts, but he wouldn't care.

_ Wait… what condition do I have?  _ The doctor’s words rang the habitual alarm bell of distrust in his head with significant, unusual delay, and no, Sansa hadn’t told him anything. Well, she could do it now, better than the fatty. Sick or healthy, he had to see her. Straight away. She was everything he wanted to remember from his past life, and he was lucky to have her in his present. With a shock, he realised he couldn’t stay away from her. The force of that discovery felt more alarming than news of any condition he might suffer from. He refused to ponder what his rapidly growing obsession with Sansa meant.

He had to keep going.

“Get out of my way,” he pushed the doctor aside, not too harshly. The youngster had helped him; a rare occurrence in Sandor's life. He owed such odd people his gratitude.

In the sickly green, stifling-hot corridor, the second boy, skinny and handsome, barred Sandor’s way back to Sansa. This one and the fatty had carried him together to this... hospital, from the clearing in the forest where he and Sansa had supposedly fallen from the heavens.

He grumbled murderously, about to push the good-looking boy  _ rudely _ to the side, the gratitude he still felt be damned.  _ What if the little bird has flown away?  _ he thought irrationally. “Didn't you hear me telling your friend to get out of my way-”

“I also made a drawing, look! We found you inside  _ this _ ! Passed out under the helm! What do you think? I know you've forgotten it, as have I by now. The gods of the Green Moon make everyone forget people and technology from other worlds. But they still exist!”

The boy had no fear. He slammed a large leaf of paper into Sandor’s chest with a very convincing black charcoal sketch of a spaceship-

Spaceships didn’t exist.

Except that Sandor had drawn Sansa in the very same vessel shaped like a black dragon, and nothing, not even the Green Moon could erase from his memory that she had piloted it with a bravery he had rarely seen in men, and much less in women, labelled as unfit for the function, except in emergencies.

This conviction had to be bullshit, of course, because if women couldn’t pilot under normal circumstances, then why in seven hells should they be able to perform in the middle of a crisis?

In a bright flash, he remembered being a pilot himself. A  _ good  _ one. Then all his old life escaped him again, lost and buried behind the gauzy haze that someone had planted inside his mind. Angry because of that, he hit the wall with a fist, finding joy and a short-lived satisfaction in damaging the ugly mint-green paint and staring at the crumbling white masonry behind it.

“What in seven hells is that?” he asked the boy about his drawing, trying to sound indifferent, hiding his curiosity and his wish for someone to confirm the truth of his fleeting memories. “I have no idea what you’re trying to tell me.”

“Seven hells?” the boy countered, nonplussed by Sandor’s display of both physical and verbal aggression. “We believe there is only one.”

“I suppose one should be enough,” Sandor said, nodding, approving of the boy's audacity. Somehow it made him less angry. 

Maybe he could get straightforward answers from this brave boy  about how to find employment. The necessity to work in order to pay for one's expenses was marked in bold letters on the first page of the bloody book introducing the local customs. They called employment a ‘job’ here, and it was rewarded in money, not in gifts, titles or favours. Well, at least the necessity to perform duties was something he could understand and identify with in this odd place. It had been the same for him in his world.

"Listen," he addressed the boy rudely, “where can a man like me find a job?”

The boy shrugged. “There’s always something. They tell us that the economy is booming. There should be a shortage of labour on all sides. But the fact is that the choices are far more limited for newcomers. You don’t have the right education or the length of work experience required for most well-paid jobs. But there’s enough work in low-profile sectors to make a decent living...  bars, construction, gardening, cleaning.” He stared at Sandor with some painful, personal interest. "You could say you’re a pilot to a recruiter of the Night’s Watch. That’s where I work. Though our planes are far less complex than this,” he said, showing him that drawing again.

Spaceships  _ didn’t  _ exist. The boy was crazy.

But Sandor had his own drawing, and alongside the young woman who had somehow burrowed a place in his soul, it contained that  _ thing _ that corresponded to the erased notion of a space vessel in his messed up mind.

_ Balerion. Is it? _

"Right," he muttered, feeling his control over his temper slipping, even though there was no real reason for it. Why? Was it... his condition? But being with the woman had helped him. Something about her must be helping him handle his urge to break the walls. He had been away from her calming presence too long. He had to get back to her.

He strode by the boy, forgetting to push him away.

“Hey, wait!” the boy yelled after him. “If you come to the Watch, ask for me! The name's Jon! I'd be happy to show you around, and the job is much better than bouncing or sweeping!”

“Fine, Jon,” Sandor muttered with a lack of interest, pushing open the door of his room with an unnecessary amount of force. The gesture caused his healing leg to throb. He’d stepped on it with far too much enthusiasm. Oddly enough, he didn’t mind the pain. It was familiar and better than the irritating knowledge that someone had altered his mind, making him forget his past. That certainty only made him even more aggressive than he seemed to be by… by nature. This realisation sent chills down his spine. Was he murderous and violent, or did he need another surgery to get better?

Sansa was still seated on his bed, and began nervously wringing her hands as soon as he got in; the most beautiful woman he had ever met, and yet so easy to startle, unaware of the power she could wield over men. He felt ludicrously happy and elated to see her again, even after only twenty minutes of separation. 

He wished she weren't afraid of him. Her presence was a balm for Sandor. Effective immediately. The walls of this room were safe from his anger.

“The fat boy told me you know something about a condition of mine,” he said coldly to Sansa, suppressing the sudden need to grin like an idiot because she was still there.  _ Where would she go? Fly off?  _ The latter was thankfully impossible. “What’s wrong with me?”

“By ‘fat boy’, you mean Sam,” she talked rapidly, vividly, her voice a treasure of harmony and sound.

_ Could you please sing for me? _

“I was going to speak to you, but then you  _ left. _ ” She sounded hurt by him going to take a piss, and he felt absurdly needed and useful in return. “There is something in your blood. Something alive that the newcomers and the people from the Green Moon don't have. Microorganisms. Sam doesn’t know what they are and fears they could make you unwell.”

Of course, the Green Moon had made him forgetful, like everyone else, but not angry and occasionally uncontrollable.

He was already like that.

The information about the special content of his blood rang very true, and he felt a bit better from hearing the news. He preferred knowing what he was.

“I’m fine,” he said with a shrug. His leg hurt, though. He wasn’t all well.  _ Not yet. _

“Will you sleep, please?” she asked him nicely. “Doctor Marwyn was briefly here while you were away. If your leg begins to heal as it should, he might discharge you on the morrow. They’ll bring a visitor’s bed for me so I can stay as well. As your wife,” she added hastily, sounding afraid of her own statement.

On a whim, wondering what she’d do if he obeyed her, he lay down in a brusque motion, making the large bed creak.

Not flinching away from him, Sansa slowly pulled first the sheet and then the thin blanket up to his neck, tucking him in like a child from all sides, her hands drumming gently over his covered body, so close and yet so far. He would have preferred to sleep naked in the ungodly heat of the Green Moon, but her actions were so unexpected and pleasing that he surrendered. By the time she was done, he felt unbelievably relaxed and even wanted to sleep.

The only more perfect outcome would be if she sneaked in under the sheets with him.... naked. She obviously made no move to commit such wonderful sin. Yet she considered herself his wife... and the preposterous claim didn’t sound entirely false to Sandor, except for the bedding detail. That was missing from the equation.

“This has to be wrong,” he muttered, half in slumber. “You can’t possibly be my wife.”

“I feel the same,” she confessed, “yet I occasionally remember it as true, that we are married before the gods. Do you not?”

He nodded and replied honestly, “Yes, but it still can’t be.”

“Why not?” she wondered very timidly.

Unable to stop himself, he reached for a loose lock of her hair near her waist, ruining the perfection of the linen cocoon she’d made for him by sticking out his arm. The silky sensation was new, unfamiliar ground. He had touched it only once with a lover’s intent, earlier today, when she had first walked into his room and held his hand. He had been overwhelmed by the revelation she was real, not only a fading memory, and with him on the Green Moon.

“If you were my wife in truth, I’d know,” he rasped. “There’s no way I wouldn’t.”

She gave him a bewildered look. “I don’t understand.”

“Precisely,” he nodded enthusiastically, his long hair shaking wildly around his repulsive mug. “If you were mine, you’d get it. And you'd either be fine with it, or you'd be already asking for that thing… for the divorce. You wouldn't be clueless.”

She lowered her head and looked terribly embarrassed. It struck him that maybe… she wasn’t  _ that _ young, but maybe they had only just got married in the place they came from, and hadn't had time to consummate their relationship before being thrown out of their world.

This imagining of his sounded like a piss-poor story written for old septas to pass their time during interplanetary travel.

But septas didn't exist, and space travel was impossible. He was being a moron.

A joyfully sleepy one.

He chuckled quietly and let Sansa’s hair go - a lost ray of orange sunshine leaving his fingers, in the subtly green gloom of the bloody hospital.

Very soon, he slept like a log, forgetting everything, even his own name.

Xxxxxx

Xxxxxx

Xxxxxx

In the bright, sunny morning, the doctors let him and Sansa out, into the City of Castle Black, with a large backpack containing groceries for the first few days, several sets of odd local garments for each of them, publications about life on the Green Moon, and their notebooks with drawings. He vaguely remembered that his special black space jumpsuit had vanished overnight and that he should demand to get it back. But no such suit existed, so in the end, he stopped worrying, glad to be gone. The hospital resembled a prison. He didn't want to be cornered nor told what to do.

_ People are free here, or so they say. Let's see how much of that is true. _

Freedom was an illusion, in his opinion. There was always someone whose will was being done, and a bunch of people doing it for him.

For starters, despite all talk of equal work for men and women in their books, they were given only one bag with stuff, and it was Sandor who carried it. To him it felt natural, and he would never let a woman carry anything heavier than a pretty gown, but he nonetheless felt that the locals should have given them two bags if they wanted to be true to their own ideals.

Strange, four-wheeled vehicles drove in the streets, even a long car on rails that a passer-by called a bloody tram, running after it in vain, unable to catch it.

In stark daylight, he noticed Sansa's eyes were tired. "Didn't you use the spare bed?” he wondered.

“I thought I’d read a bit and by the time I finished, it was almost morning,” she confessed, yawning. “I don’t understand some of the local concepts, despite all the explanations, but at least I’ve read it all.”

“So did I,” he blurted, betraying himself.

_ She’s stupid, she won’t remember. _

But Sansa was already giving him a wary look. “Then you read about divorce. How could you ask if it's food?”

Only the truth would avail him now.

“I said I didn’t want that dish, did I?” he rasped with intensity. “That was the answer to your question if I wanted a divorce. I don’t. Do you?” he regretted asking her as soon as the query left his mouth.

“I’m not certain,” she replied spontaneously, her voice once more a miracle of sound. “And I’m sorry for taking your answer literally. I guess I didn’t expect of a man like you to speak in metaphors.”

He didn’t know exactly what metaphors were, except that they were a non-straightforward form of expression. Apparently, Sansa understood his answer now and wasn’t repulsed by it so he had accidentally said something good. This was so unusual for him that he had to grin.

She rearranged her hair, gave him a half-smile prettier than seven heavens, and looked at his bandages with concern, under the short leg of the black shorts he was wearing. “If you're up to a bit longer walk,” she began, “I think we ought to start by finding a… a home. And jobs,” she added cautiously, trying to sound, well, local, he supposed, not betraying how she felt about the necessity to work. Unrolling the map of Castle Black, she pointed at the location of the so-called Agency, the place where newcomers needed to report in order to start their life on the Green Moon. “It’s not that far,” she said apologetically.

“Should we catch a tram?” he asked, hoping he might be using a metaphor.

She didn’t smile so he was probably unsuccessful.

“You can’t walk very far, can you?” Her voice was very deep and concerned now.

“It was a joke,” he rasped rapidly. “I could walk you back to the heavens if you wish,” he boasted.

She gaped and studied him from tip to toe. “Would you?” she breathed out. "Could you? Do you remember the way?"

“Try me,” he challenged her.

“I might one day,” she replied dreamily, fixating him with her blue gaze. “But for now, I would wish us to walk to the Agency,” she finished in a much more pragmatic tone.

He feared that she had just used plenty of metaphors he didn’t understand. What did she expect from him, and why in seven hells couldn’t she be clearer about it?

Fact was, they were both sweating profusely. It was damned hot already, so early in the morning, and they needed to find a place to stay immediately or they would both  _ burn  _ from sheer sunshine.

The map of Castle Black proved to be very imprecise in the centre of the city; a labyrinth of sinuous streets, densely constructed, exhibiting a mixture of very old and fairly new houses leaning onto each other, with brick, wood, stone, steel and concrete appearing side by side. Sometimes both ancient and modern materials interchanged on the same building. There was no obsidian, and very little glass, only for moderately sized windows.

_ Obsidian doesn't exist. Just like plasma. _

After a few hours of aimless walk in the merciless sun, they finally found the Agency. In Sandor's opinion, the woman whose job was to welcome them wasn't doing her job properly.

"It's my lunch break in five minutes so I'll have to be very brief," she announced as soon as they entered and explained who they were. After drawing a little balloon with the location of their lodging on Sansa’s map, she handed them two sets of keys. "It's a cosy little flat in a medieval house,"  she described it, winking with false complicity of a trader selling a pig in the poke. "It has plenty of character. You'll see it's particularly suited for you, in view of your ancient social customs and modes of dressing, forsaken on the Green Moon. Living in the conditions which are not so remote from your origin should help you adapt."

"Thank you," Sansa wanted to say something more, but the lady wouldn't let her.

"The jobs are listed here," she gave Sandor a single sheet of paper, averting her eyes from his scars. "Have a lovely day!" With that, she left, not even bothering to secure her workplace from new customers or any other intruders.

There was a laptop on her empty desk, Sandor noticed, but it was switched off. He couldn't understand why there was so much information on paper when they had computers on the Green Moon. Everything should be on pads, he believed.

But pads didn't exist.

The so-called flat was nearby. It turned out to be a shabby single room with small kitchen and even smaller privy and bath, on the last floor of a very old, decrepit  _ wooden  _ building where the temperature was even higher than in the streets below. At least it had curtains and some primitive wooden shutters that kept the brightness of the sunshine out, if not the heat. The only good piece of equipment it contained was a white cooling machine, filled with bottles of cold water. Sandor drank and refilled his bottle from the tap, amazed that there was any. He realised he’d expected this place  _ not  _ to have water.

The flat was dirty like the single hell people here believed in. Sansa seemed afraid to touch anything in their new home, her nose gently pinched, "It's so dusty in here," she exclaimed incredulously.

"We won't die from it," he grumbled, despite that she was right.

The list of jobs was even more humiliating than their new home. There weren't any comparable duties for people in the place he and Sansa came from. Such mundane tasks were done by robots.

Robots, however, didn’t exist, just like space vessels and female acolytes of an unknown religion called septas. Existing or not, and try as he might, occasionally he remembered all those strange things.

Maybe he wasn’t as brain-washed as he should have been. Maybe the bugs in his blood created this side effect. In a bout of hope that he might recover his memories, he tried to remember the origin of his scars once more… and failed miserably, clearly forgetful as anyone else here. He wanted to hit the wall, but it was enough to look at Sansa to stop that urge. Collected. Honest-looking. Brave. His decision was for the best: the wood might give in and then they would have a hole in a wall, allowing the sun in.

Job-wise, Sansa could choose between cleaning a house of a rich man called Borroq the Boar, serving food and drinks at the café called Craster’s or  _ dancing  _ in the same place, and he could choose between being a bouncer at Craster’s or cleaning the streets from mammoth shit at night. A legend in tiny letters explained that a café was the same like an inn in the understanding of the newcomers, with the difference that here people were civilised and didn't beat each other to death when drunk.

Sansa didn't seem offended by their miserable prospects. Maybe because women did all the cleaning and serving in the place where they hailed from anyway, though Sandor still strongly believed most of that was done by those non-existant robots.  She stuttered undecidedly, “M-maybe we should try Craster’s-”

“I don’t want you to dance,” he blurted jealously.

That sounded like an activity women shouldn't engage in, especially not in public, if they didn't want to face grave consequences of banishment from family and good society to the margin of existence. They wouldn't go hungry or die, but they would be forgotten, as little important as the robots or microbes.

“Neither do I.” Sansa thankfully shared his opinion, waving off his concern, not noticing the ugliness and the personal tone of his gut reaction. “How hard can it be to serve food and drinks? Or to ask the clients who misbehave to leave, in your case? And…” she looked down. “We’d be together.”

That last reason for her idea would have never occurred to him, but now it seemed like the brightest thing he’d heard in a long time. Together was good. He could look after her. “Right,” he said, feigning indifference. “Where in seven hells is this Craster’s?”

"I don't know," Sansa said hesitantly as if she might be suddenly doubting her own choices. "We'll have to ask for directions."

It turned out that everyone knew. In the long summer evenings, the whole of Castle Black gathered to eat and drink at Craster’s: a large four-floor-high structure outside the gates of the old medieval city, not very far from where Sandor and Sansa now lived _. _

They were both admitted for an evening of trial, to work until 23h in exchange for food and a small wage. If they did well, they could continue. Sandor was made to walk through the café and occasionally throw out some clients. There was a man who began cutting a table with a large stone knife, and then a woman with a mask who engaged in a vulgar verbal altercation with a man serving her drink, unhappy with how it was made. A fellow guard, whose name he didn’t care to remember, told him this was nothing. The night was peaceful, though it might become worse later on, when clients drank more. Sandor grunted, not deigning to reply in words.

Unexpectedly, working in the same place with Sansa brought him new misery. All men of all ages in the buggering place looked at her. One invited her to a  _ date  _ when she served his food _.  _ Dating was another of those odd customs on the Green Moon they had both read about. She politely refused, inching imperceptibly away from that customer, but Sandor remained on edge. How long before there was a charming one and she said yes? One that didn’t earn a living with strong arms but with sweet words? He vaguely remembered ladies loved those and he didn’t possess any. Snarling at people came more naturally.

Sandor gnashed his teeth and waited. He told himself he could do this without killing a customer, he  _ could _ . Though it wouldn’t come easy.

At a quarter to eleven, the two boys from the hospital, Jon and Sam, came for a drink and beckoned him to join him, acting  _ friendly,  _ finding a table near the entrance.

He strode towards them. Refusing to sit down, he barked at the fatty, “What do you want from me?”

“Not me, Mr Clegane, I’m so s-sorry to bother you,” the boy stuttered, “Jon wanted to see you and he’s my best friend. Well, my only friend. He thinks you remember the heavens better than any other of us newcomers. I know he’s crazy like his father, but I still want to help him-

“He’s lying, Clegane,” Jon interrupted his friend, “Sam is a doctor at heart and he also wanted to see you. He’s afraid you’re still not well after the surgery.”

“R-right,” it was Sandor’s turn to stutter, unsure how to react at perfectly unknown people continuing to show either interest or concern for him. The fatty had been kind not to mention his bug-infested condition to his only friend. “I’m fine, see,” he shook his leg like a moron.

At that moment, a bunch of women who were even less dressed than those already eating and drinking in the bloody place barged in. Many men looked, but only a few approached, not inviting them to dates, but discussing… payments.

Sandor was puzzled and sank on the bench next to Jon because he wouldn't fit next to Sam. His shift was almost over by now.

“What are they?” he asked, uncertain.

“Sex workers,” Sam explained. “Didn't you read the introductory information concerning the Green Moon?”

“Not in great detail,” Sandor lied flatly.  _ Right.  _ He should have known. “What do they do?” He hoped he would learn more than the books said by feigning idiocy.

“They have sex for money,” Sam explained patiently in the learned tone of a maester.

_ Not maester,  _ _ doctor, _ Sandor corrected himself.  _ Yes, and? I read that much myself. _

“They’ll do only what you agree on and pay for,” Sam continued paternally. “You shouldn’t harass them on account of their profession, or hit them, or force them to do things that are not on offer. They are as respectable as any other citizen of the Green Moon.”

“Why in seven hells are you repeating the bloody book?” Sandor betrayed his ruse, unable to lie for very long.

“So you read it?” Jon mocked him immediately. “Well, here’s what it doesn’t say. Newcomers are known to despise some attitudes to life and certain professions. They regularly molest sex workers, women, and any person who doesn't conform to their notions of either male or female sex.  After some time, most of them adjust to our ways and live a life in peace. Others _don’t_. They rape and kill women for being poorly dressed in their opinion. Or men who are not manly enough. Or any other person who isn't to their liking. Such newcomers end up in prison. That’s what we do, in the Watch, among our other duties. We bring criminals to justice.”

The latter sounded vaguely like Sandor’s employ in the future he was coming from, though not quite.

Sandor ruminated over the new information. Besides drawing Sansa, he had made notes in his books about the Green Moon, wishing to remember the differences. In his world, there were literally no sex workers. The profession didn't exist, not even in secret. On the contrary, sex out of marriage was forbidden by law, but half of the population was breaking it, as far as he remembered. Women whose transgressions were discovered would be banished to live on the margins of the society. Men only received verbal admonishments for their behaviour from the magistrates and they had to repent publicly, swearing they wouldn't do it again.

Effectively, in his opinion, all women in Craster’s, including Sansa, were offensively underdressed to be in public, but this anomaly only tickled his curiosity and, in the case of the pretty ones, his hormones, without making him overly aggressive. He supposed this wasn't a reason he'd end up in prison for.

Suddenly, questions about dating surged out of his big mouth.

“Wait, with this dating, how does that go? You can ask any of these other ones for a date, those who don't… work in sex sector…? You buy them some food or drink once or twice, pay no money for sex, and if they say yes you can fuck them in any way you like, if they allow you to?”

Sam blushed. Both he and Jon nodded in unison, gulping down their drinks, a light yellow stinky something called ale. Sandor found it unappealing.  _ The brandy, however...  _ He wouldn’t think of how tasty that smelled in this place. He had other things on his mind.

“Why is there a need for sex  _ workers _ , then?” he couldn't help but wonder. "A few drinks may come cheaper."

“Sometimes it takes a lot of dating before a woman says yes and you need to be nice to them and entertain them while paying for their dinners," Sam replied knowingly. "With sex workers, you only pay the fee you agree upon and you can have your service as soon as they have time, often on the same day. They do things the others don’t. And you only have to be minimally polite towards them and not hurt them. There are many reasons, see? Or…” the fat boy stared at Sandor’s face, and then at his own stomach.

“If you’re ugly, the non-working girls never let you.” Sandor didn’t have any difficulty stating that truth.

He pondered the sex trade, wondered if he would have used it if it had existed in his world. He concluded that he might have paid them not to avert their eyes, feeling angry and empty and unnecessarily aggressive. It was his condition. His blood. His scars. He ignored it the best he could, having another important question. “Can you invite your wife for a date? Or is that somehow improper?”

“I guess you could,” Sam said, scratching his head. “But it would be a bit old-fashioned. Dating is done before marriage and after a divorce, when a person is looking for a new partner.”

_ Not forbidden? _

“Right,” Sandor retorted lazily. “I’ll see you around.”

He went to the kitchen and waited for Sansa to finish washing up. Her last hour was thankfully for that, and not for serving. There should be a robot for the job, but there wasn’t, only a primitive machine that had to be filled manually, with the dishes  needing to be scraped off first.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked when she was done. "Or dinner? I'm starving." It wasn't a lie.

She gave him an odd look, but didn’t inch away from him as she did from the customer who’d asked the same. “Are you inviting me on a date?” she needed him to be more specific.

He nodded stupidly, noticing how her pretty fingers were red from cold water. She was terribly underdressed in his opinion, with her arms bare from the elbow down, in a wide tunic that resembled his own except that the dark blue-lilac colour was much more feminine than the black he'd chosen. Improperly tight trousers _ ,  _ narrower than a jumpsuit, revealed the shape of her long, perfect legs. She was still more covered than most women on the Green Moon, and too pretty to be real.

“Well, why not?” she said, observing him with interest, and followed him to one of the empty tables.

Craster came to serve them in person. Happy with their service, he said he would keep them both in his employ and deduct whatever they ate and drank from their wages.

"Tonight it's from  _ my _ wage," Sandor rasped decisively. He'd do this dating thing properly to see where it led him.

Sansa courageously ordered a sparkling something. “It resembles the white wine that Father occasionally let me drink,” she confided in Sandor, looking sadly down at the table. “And now I’ll never see him again.”

_ Father. _

She hadn’t made a drawing of him, had she? She missed other people…

So what?

He was here, the others weren’t. He wouldn’t waste his opportunity.

Nervous like seven hells, he drank sparkling  _ water,  _ bravely resisting the smell of the local brandy… He’d love to have it, but then… he would pass out, he remembered, or beat up someone, or worse. He didn’t want any of it right now.

Sansa finished her bubbly drink and yawned.

The strange salad on her plate was half eaten and stirred around with her fork. Meanwhile, he had finished his meat dish in under a few minutes, not even knowing what he ate. Perhaps boar, caught by that other guy who needed a servant, Borroq.

He realised that they hadn’t spoken at all, and that this was required on a date in order to ask for more, later on. He was supposed to entertain her.

“I’m very tired and this champagne has made me sleepy,” she whispered. “It was more difficult than I thought, this  _ job.  _ Could we please go home?”

“Anywhere you want,” he said and meant it, accompanying her to the street. The temperature was a bit lower at night, though not very much, under the full yellow moon.

“You stink,” she complained half-heartedly on the way. "I'm sorry to have mentioned it. It’s the heat-"

“I know,” he reacted, not understanding why she bothered to state the obvious.

“Probably me as well,” she said weakly.

He sniffed her. “No,” he said. “You smell like seven heavens.”

She laughed, inches away from him. "It's kind of you to say so, but I don't believe you."

Another couple strolled by them, kissing as they went, holding hands.

Sansa’s hand accidentally brushed his. On an impulse, he grabbed it, a bit harder than he would have wanted. She almost pulled it out.

“Trying to fit in,” he explained hastily, “not acting like bloody newcomers. Unless you mind?” he felt timid and facing a judgment. “You can voice your opinion, remember?”

She relaxed his hands in his. “I don’t think so,” she said, “I feel like I ought to mind this disgraceful action of yours, but the truth is that I don’t,” she stared at him squarely with large blue eyes, quiet like forest lakes. "Not at all," she breathed out.

“Fine, then,” he said dryly.

They walked on. With every new step, he felt stronger and oddly victorious.

If she said yes to his advances, then they would be alright. It wouldn’t be prohibited to fall for each other. They wouldn’t have to hide or produce a marriage certificate they didn’t bring from the heavens. 

Where he came from, their association would be forbidden by law outside marriage, but in the privacy of luxury homes built of glass and unbreakable obsidian where law couldn't enter so easily, the game would be similar: men or women would approach each other with discretion, looking for a willing lover.

_ Maybe the Green Moon isn't all that different. _


	9. Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will never be able to thank enough hardlyfatal, for helping me express my ideas and not offend English language (too much) in the process.

**Nine**

Her first evening at work had felt like the first day of a new life.

Before serving at Craster’s, she had never earned a wage for doing her duty, or so she believed, having forgotten her past. Only her principles remained, floating in the empty space of her mind, deprived of people and events, devoid of reasons and explanations. Having to work hard and striving for perfection was imperative. All people ought to fulfil their duties, on the Green Moon or elsewhere. This she could understand.

What she felt was different was the possibility to choose. Well, perhaps scraping plates wasn’t a great pick. But dancing would have been worse and her stomach coiled like a snake at the mere thought of swinging in public, dressed like a woman from the Green Moon. She had glimpsed the dancers in a separate room at Craster’s, both female and male. Their outfits were even shinier, shorter and tighter than the garments worn by everyone else.

But even more strange and unusual, and… welcome, perhaps, was the local custom to date or _not_ , according to her wishes. Dating was… _courting_. That much she had gathered. She wasn't obliged to engage in that endeavour and no one would arrange it for her. She could live in chastity for the rest of her days, without anyone’s approval, instead of waiting to become older and ineligible for marriage.

 _But I_ _am_ _married,_ she recalled. _It’s too late for a life of prayer._ Her nose wrinkled at the thought. _But he says it’s not real or he would remember._ Very absurdly, this thought saddened her. Why? Neither did she remember any gesture on his part that would have ruined her good name, unless he was burying it now by holding her hand.

She had allowed it, and felt no shame about it as she perhaps ought to.

Glancing furtively at the large, disfigured man grasping her tiny palm, she was happy she had said yes to his invitation to a date, shortly after refusing a perfectly handsome, though rather loud, foreigner.

She had done both without thinking or input from someone older and wiser. The power to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ felt like a sin, but to wield it was so appealing that she couldn't resist the temptation.

It had all begun when she paid attention to how Sandor had reacted to the other man’s proposition: suddenly alert, halting in one place, letting his large arms hang helplessly next to his enormous body. When her polite answer was _no,_ Sandor had shrugged with relief and walked away.

After that episode, she couldn’t help but notice every time he had pretended to _not_ look at her in the seemingly casual performance of his duties. His stony, disinterested gaze haunted her every step. Soon she found herself expecting him to _say_ something: to disapprove, yell at her, call her _girl_ , advise her how to do better.

But he hadn't intervened, letting her work as she saw fit. His attitude was both pleasing and exasperating. Why had he been stalking her with his glances if he had nothing to say? If he was indifferent to her efforts?

Yet she would have been terribly unhappy if he had demeaned her and bossed her around. He was ruining her calm! But the perplexing feelings he was causing her had somehow helped her carry out her tasks with ease and grace, even when they weren’t particularly gratifying.

During their solitary dinner for two, he had kept quiet while she occasionally spoke, her voice girly, shrill, and lonely over the small wooden table between them. His calm had a thawing effect on her. She felt she could say anything, proper and well-thought, or stupid and careless, and he would simply listen, not answering, not judging, observing her with a quiet expression she couldn’t place. Strangely, the more she believed that, the less she had to say, until they both sank into companionable silence. By that time, the weariness and wine they called ‘champagne’ had subdued her grief over first losing and then _forgetting_ her family.

Without the distraction of her own voice, and with lighter heart, she had plenty of time to study Sandor in return.

He was imposing as his scars: large and dangerous. Yet he had looked so harmless to her at their table. Safe. Proportionally built. Almost handsome. Well, maybe that wasn’t an adequate word. He awoke her interest, unlike any other man she had seen so far on the Green Moon, and not because of his face. She had begun to think of him as… hers, somehow. Her only ally in this new world.

Right now, very late at night, in the winding streets of Castle Black, he seemed restless. His eyes were vivid, wandering freely from her to the colourfully uneven houses of the old city, from red brick to grey stone and black timber, and always back to Sansa. Like a mountain on the move, he steered them both, hand in hand, in direction of their home. Every now and then, he shortened his long strides, adjusting his step to hers. As a result, she could follow without being dragged along, but they still kept a good pace.

The suffocating heat of the Green Moon had diminished greatly with the arrival of darkness. Rolling like a great wave of warmth above the city, it became pleasant instead of oppressive, and a bit like something from an old song. The scent of strange, white tree blossoms permeated the air, saturating it with pungent sweetness.

 _A summer night,_ she realised.

Summer nights existed in the world she had lost only as a distant memory, even more remote than her own fleeting ones.

She could walk for hours without a cloak, in the short-sleeved tunic she was wearing, with her elbows completely and unseemly bare. The sensation was wicked and yet enjoyable, the warm breeze caressing the skin on her face and her forearms.

She suddenly regretted not wearing those shorter trousers of the dancers or too-small skirts. Just not shiny, that would have been too much. Barefoot, she would have run like a little girl down the sinewy streets of Castle Black on her own.

But, in that lovely night, she wasn’t alone. There was Sandor, holding her hand: her husband or not, or not in truth, whatever that meant, and yes, he was right, she didn’t know what marriage entailed. And he never explained. And she never demanded clarifications because she felt she _should_ know.

If she were considered old enough for courting or marriage, both in the world she had lost and in this one, she ought to know what it implied, at least in broad lines, if not in detail for the sake of preserving her innocence. But she had no clue and contrary to her placid, orderly nature, it began to make her angry on the inside.

Why hadn't she been told?

She knew there was terrible shame, offence and sin in letting a man spoil her before marriage. She’d be condemned by gods and men if she allowed it, misled by her inherent woman's weakness. But she had never been given any examples about where propriety ended, precisely, and shame began. And she hadn't been able to understand why the gods tolerated the terrible sin of showing naked parts of her body to a man within marriage. Wasn't it better to stay pure until the end of her days?

And then, in the small publication for newcomers, she glimpsed the reason gods might have to accept impurity. The sin had a name here, one she hadn't heard before. It was called _sex_ and it was necessary for procreation. Sansa had believed that children were sent by the gods to married couples without them having to do anything special, and much less engage in shameful actions forbidden before marriage and tolerated after the holy vows.

But children were so innocent! Her precious book with memories contained drawings of her baby brothers before she had forgotten their tiny faces. How could any action necessary to bring them to the world be innately disgraceful; a heinous crime in the eyes of gods and men? And if sex wasn't deplorable in itself, why was it so abominable before marriage?

Why, why, hadn't she been told?

By her parents? By anyone?

She could rage about her ignorance as much as her heart desired in the hidden depths of her being, but it would remain unchanged.

Dating could substitute marriage or lead to it on the Green Moon. It could entail _sex_ or not. People of any gender could date each other, according to their own wishes, on the condition that both parties agreed and respected each other. If those who were married divorced, they were free to date again. A special page was dedicated to products couples should use if they chose to have sex, but not children. The last section was dedicated to sex workers, their rights and the rules of their trade. The text stopped after that, as though everyone, even the newcomers, knew what sex was.

All but Sansa.

_What about love?_

The books never mentioned it. Maybe it only existed in heaven, and not on the Green Moon.

Sansa drew a small measure of consolation from the fact that both she and Sandor were equally forgetful of their past: aware of being married on paper, and undecided about anything else between them. She felt as if she had just met him and they were starting anew. This imagining pleased her beyond any reasonable expectation. If she continued dating him she might finally discover what marriage was all about.

Or not.

And the choice was entirely up to her.

Suddenly she became giddy, more restless than Sandor, unwilling to go home. Was it the wine they called champagne that made her change her mind? Or the sensation of accomplishment in settling on a new world? Or the man holding her hand?

The city at night was full of deserted alleys to be explored, under the large, orange moon. Sansa wondered if that moon had a name, and if the moon she was on looked green to some unknown couple strolling on its surface.

_That’s impossible. Life beyond Green Moon doesn’t exist._

_Except in heaven…_

Melancholic and jittery at the same time, she looked down at the ancient, ragged, irregular cobbled pavement, needing to forget the seductive shine of the uninhabitable celestial body above her head. The street wound up, between rows of tall, narrow houses with steep triangular roofs.

Steep… Built as if it snowed regularly here. As if the land weren’t so incredibly warm.

“What’s up there?” she wondered curiously, pulling Sandor with her on a long, tortuous climb.

The narrow street led them to a sept-like structure with only one instead of seven high towers, built of elegant, polished grey stone in place of dark volcanic glass. The great wooden door was closed. On the opposite side of the entrance, across a small square, a long wall overlooked the lower parts of the city from its highest point. Sansa wandered in that direction, wishing to enjoy the view. When she was about to say how beautiful it was, a large, metallic bird surged in the sky above her and Sandor and croaked.

“A bird design,” Sandor grunted. “Illegal. Needs to be shot down.”

His confused words found anchor in her deeply buried thoughts. A spaceship constructed to look like an animal, in form of a bird. This was forbidden. Only dragonships were allowed. She had piloted one without any formal preparation and despite her fears of failure, she had been rather successful. Perhaps she would try once more-

_But..._

“But spaceships don’t exist,” she argued feebly in favour of what she knew to be true, stopping her false memories. “It's just a bird.”

“You’re right,” he answered, scratching his head. “It looks like an oversized mockingbird. Maybe they grow big like dragons over here. See, it tricked us. It’s already flown away.”

Dragons didn't exist either, but Sansa didn't want to offend Sandor by correcting him, not now that he had miraculously started talking to her. His voice was a treat. Deep and raspy, it had awoken her interest even before their first date.

The unidentified flying object had vanished from their line of sight too fast for a bird, leaving the orange moon in the sky alone. Its circular form became irregular, with cinnamon ink spilling over the borders, like poorly applied topping on a freshly baked cake.

“Let’s walk a bit more,” she wished aloud and dragged him on, back down into the labyrinth of streets.

To her regret, he was silent again, following her lead, continuing to study her and their surroundings.

An hour later, he stopped brusquely and stared her down. “Are you trying to kill me by walking because you’re too damned scared to sleep under the same roof with a monster like myself?” he asked with cold venom in his voice.

His remark ruined all her imaginings, but only for a moment. The night still smelled sweet and the strange bird was gone. Even the provokingly bright moon decided to hide behind a cloud, leaving only unspoiled, silvery starlight and a few old-fashioned electric lamps to illuminate the streets.

“Didn’t you enjoy it?” she had to wonder.

He gave her a strange look. “You _enjoyed_ walking with the likes of me?”

“I loved it, yes,” she replied honestly.

He kept examining her, expecting more. His gaze made her feel weak and her lips remained sealed. She felt stupid and couldn't say more when he fixated on her like this.

“Want to walk on?” he asked after a while, lowering his gaze down to his huge feet.

“I’m very tired,” she replied, “I don’t know how I made it this far.” She looked around and realised she had lost them both with her wandering. “Could you find the way back home?”

“This way,” he said decisively and dragged her for a change; his palm suddenly sweaty and too warm.

Sansa was forced to scurry behind until she toppled over a loose stone in the pavement and yelped with pain.

“Women,” Sandor muttered dismissively, taking her in his arms.

Her head landed against his chest, under the good side of his face, near the steady thump of his heart. Her legs dangled in the air, over his massive arm.

“I’m tall,” she tried to argue with him. This might have been a problem in her past life. “Your leg! The wound! You need to rest.”

She was too late in remembering. How could she have been so discourteous, forcing a barely-healed man to walk for hours on uneven, hilly ground, after he had to stand almost the entire evening for his work?

Raucous laugh was her only answer. Not dismissive, friendly. “I want to carry you,” he rasped. “Unless you’d prefer walking?”

His deep voice was a wonder to her senses, just like the night breeze and the scent of tree blossoms.

 _If you were mine, you’d know._ His words to her, in the hospital, rang stridently in her head as if he had just repeated them to her. Except that she didn’t know, anymore, if it was exactly what he had said or if she had already made a fabrication from his words. By the age of nineteen, (was it almost her twentieth birthday?) Sansa was well aware of her habit to embellish the world for herself, to make its details more splendid or more according to her wishes. She was equally aware of the limits of her fantasies. Not everything was beautiful, just like not everyone was good.

Now she wished to know how it would feel to truly belong to someone, without any addition from her beauty-loving mind, but was too ashamed to ask. Perhaps she’d learn it from him on her own.

When he crossed the porch of their house and began conquering one steep flight of steps after another leading to their flat, his heart beat faster. But he showed no intention of putting her down, and she didn’t dare object.

She’d make him see Sam the doctor on the morrow.

On the last floor, their flat gaped open. There were voices inside, both familiar. Crossing the doorstep in a giant stride, Sandor put Sansa gently on her feet before him, right in front of their late night guests: Ygritte, and an unknown man with a goatee.

Or rather, Sansa didn’t remember him, but his appearance was terribly familiar. His short-sleeved tunic was impeccably white and had a stiff collar with three buttons underneath. Sansa hadn't seen any other man with such a tunic. One of the tiny buttons was glittery, or maybe Sansa’s tired eyes were playing tricks on her. Was he another newcomer with peculiar taste in clothing?

“Good evening,” the man greeted them jovially. “You’ve both just seen a spaceship in form of a bird flying over the city, right?”

Ygritte eyed both Sandor and Sansa with distrust, as if they had just caught a dangerous space plague requiring quarantine. But quarantine didn’t exist, and Sansa had no clue how men prevented the spread of contagious diseases on the Green Moon. She glanced back at Sandor whose face was expressionless, not helpful at all. He had raised his arm and placed his left palm on the wall. The masonry under his hand looked wobbly, as if it would lose solidity and crumble down at any moment.

“You’ve seen a spaceship in form of a mockingbird, haven’t you?” the man repeated patiently. “Answer, please.”

His tone of a good magistrate was even more familiar than his looks to Sansa.

“Who are you?” she asked timidly.

“Mr. Petyr Baelish, the Castle Black’s Commissioner for Public Health.” Ygritte made the introduction. “You both know me. Now answer the Commissioner.”

He wasn't a newcomer then, but a magistrate from the Green Moon.

Sansa opened her mouth to say that _yes, we’ve seen it_ , but before she could utter a word Sandor rasped decisively behind her back at Ygritte. “I don’t know what you and Mr Baelish are talking about, girl. Spaceships don’t exist.”

He was right, of course, Sansa knew.

“There are no spaceships,” she parroted quietly and immediately invented what she might have seen instead of a bird or an impossible flying machine. “We’ve seen a falling star and made a wish,” she lied. _Do people make wishes on the Green Moon?_

Ygritte’s expression became more relaxed so maybe they did.

“I’m happy that we were wrong in our assumptions,” Mr Baelish said curtly, not sounding content at all. In Sansa's opinion, ‘disappointed’ would be a much more apt description.

“What assumptions?” Sandor asked lazily.

“The newcomers who continue to suffer from visions of non-existent objects, especially of unidentified flying objects, have to be locked in the closed wing of the hospital for observation until they can adapt,” Ygritte explained helpfully. "Mr. Baelish is the administrator of that section. He interviews potential patients to evaluate them before the treatment starts."

“What if there are stars or rocks on the Green Moon similar to spaceships or if the newcomers just don’t see well?” Sansa wondered. “It’s not easy to land here.”

“That, my dear, is a great truth,” the Commissioner said approvingly. “There are no more heavens here. Only death awaits us all.”

“There must be gods as well,” Sansa protested. “And perhaps another life after our passing. We don’t know for certain, to be sure, but we believe in it.”

“There’s _no_ afterlife,” Ygritte argued aggressively, offended by Sansa's pious words. “Yes, there used to be life after death on the Green Moon, thousands of years ago, when we still had winter. Ugly, undead, walking corpses murdering the living. No one wants that kind of life. _No one_ ,” she emphasised.

“She’s free to believe in her gods, woman,” Sandor admonished the nurse. “It’s stated in your bloody books. You can believe in your arse or in big black nothing, and she in her gods. It's all the same and equally valid.”

Ygritte looked at Sandor with contempt. “I didn’t know you could read,” she said cynically.

“That’s what the pretty boy thought as well,” Sandor retorted sharply. “Did he pick up the rudeness from you? What's his name again? Jon-”

“My friend’s no concern of yours,” Ygritte interrupted angrily.

“Your friend?” Sandor laughed awfully. “Maybe he's the material for your other friend here, the Commissioner for loonies. Hey, Baelish, are you seeking men with visions, Baelish? Or is it more girls?”

“Which friend of yours is Mr. Clegane talking about?” Mr. Baelish wondered aloud with professional interest.

“No one,” Ygritte forced past her teeth. "He's a newcomer and is mixing things up."

Sansa could make no sense of the conversation. “I’m very tired,” she said, yawning. “If we answered your questions, Mr. Baelish, Ygritte, could you please leave us alone? We need to work tomorrow.”

Mr Baelish coughed dryly. “Should you want for a different, better-paid job, don’t hesitate to contact me,” he said sweetly, offering Sansa a card of “ _Baelish Estates_ ” with a… a _phone number_ written underneath.

Sansa wondered what a phone number was. There should be a memory stick with encrypted contact codes for the interplanetary network-

None of it existed, naturally.

She had to repeat to herself that she was normal, not insane. She had no visions from the false, ruined future.

“Is it a job in the closed wing of the hospital?” she inquired politely.

“No, my dear,” the Commissioner shook his head. “That's more for her," he gestured at Ygritte. "You would be better qualified for sex work, after proper training, of course. You wouldn't have to wash glasses or scrape plates. Other women would do it for you.”

Sansa sucked in a breath of horror, appalled at the suggestion. “Why in seven heavens do you think so?” she asked with profound shock .

It might have been a normal profession here, but it still involved an abominable _sin_ where she was from. Why did this man see _her_ as suited for it, she who now believed that she had never even been told what sex was? Was she sinful and shameful by nature in her woman's weakness, and was this man able to see her ignominy? Sex _trade_ was in complete opposition to everything she felt was right, but if that was how things were done here, perhaps she was the one who was wrong?

"A beauty like you should live in luxury, not in poverty," Baelish continued in a fatherly tone, giving Sansa’s and Sandor’s flat a disapproving look.

“She’ll figure that out for herself,” Ygritte suddenly defended her, placing herself bodily between Sansa and the Commissioner. “She may be a crazy newcomer, but she’s also like any other girl. She’s free to do what she wants. Why would she do as you say?”

“Both of you, get out of here!” Sandor barked angrily. “We aren't mad and haven't seen any bloody flying saucers or birds. Stay another minute and I’ll call the Night’s Watch to put you out for trespassing on private property.”

Sansa turned around and saw Sandor was in an extremely foul mood.

“Our guests are about to leave,” she said, trying to calm him down, suddenly afraid that he could kill Mr. Baelish with his bare hands, and that was surely a crime, even on the Green Moon.

His left hand was glued to that same spot of seemingly crunchy wall masonry. In his right hand, he was holding a short black stick against his missing ear, attached with a curled wire to a small black stand on the wall.

“There is no reason to become aggressive, Mr Clegane,” Baelish commented cheerfully. “This could also be regarded as madness.”

“Who’s aggressive?” Sandor inquired coldly. “Shall I make that call?”

“There is no need to disturb the _wise_ guardians of the Green Moon with trivialities,” Baelish replied. “Good night.”

He exited the flat like a main actor in a space opera, with his head and shoulders unnaturally high, stomping disdainfully down the stairs.

Space operas didn’t exist.

Several flights of stairs below, he spoke again; his tiny, precise voice echoing through the stairwell. “She won't put out for you, Mr. Clegane. Not for free. She's not the type. When you save some money, you might consider visiting my estates in search for a suitable partner.”

“What does he mean with that?” Sansa asked innocently of no one in particular.

“If you truly don't get him, miss, see to it that you do before accepting any of his offers,” Ygritte said fervently,  emphasising her next words. “Sex may not be as clear-cut a trade as our law might define it. Once you know more about it, do as you wish.”

To Sansa’s surprise, instead of taking the stairs down, like Baelish, she unlocked the flat next door.

“We’re neighbours!” Sansa stated incredulously, but the other redhead never replied, vanishing into her apartment.

“Sansa,” Sandor called to her, “Close the door, will you?"

He sounded attentive, concerned… and… afraid? The attitude didn’t become him.

"Go to the kitchen. Under the sink, there’s a bag of wall filler. Put some in the bucket. Add water and stir. Not with your hand, find a spoon. When it’s semi-solid, bring it over.”

She did as she was bid, preparing a sticky, repulsive white mixture.

When she returned to Sandor, he was putting the black stick back to its stand on the wall.

“What’s that?” she asked, handing him the bucket.

“A telephone,” he explained. “I saw how it works at Craster’s.”

She must have as well, but was too busy serving to pay attention to it.

He ignored his own advice about spoons. Grabbing a large portion of the mixture, he smeared it out over his captive left hand and the wall in a thick layer. Then he freed it and continued modelling the wall filler with both hands, adding more in places, until he flattened it completely. Only his fingerprints remained visible on the surface. Some crumbs of masonry had fallen off in the process, but overall the patch held.

Sansa observed, flabbergasted.

“What did you just do?” she asked incredulously.

“I made a hole in her wall and repaired it. Or do you want our _friendly_ neighbour to see first hand that I’m an aggressive madman?”

“You're not!’ she denied with passion.

“Is that so?” he countered. “What do you know? Sing if you value your safety!” he commanded her aggressively, sounding out of his mind.

She could never sing on command so she just gaped at his face, now deformed by anger, all of it. For a moment she feared he might hit her. Instinctively, she raised her hands and put them in front of her head in self-defence.

He surprised her again by sitting on the floor and hitting it with both fists, uncontrollably. Sansa wondered if he would make a hole there as well. At least Mr. Baelish didn’t live downstairs. He had almost been on the porch when he tossed his last words at Sandor, and he must have known they would make Sandor even angrier.

She firmly told herself that was the truth, and that she couldn’t be mistaken about Sandor’s goodness because she wished to reinvent him as perfect in her mind, to justify her… her growing consideration for him as equally noble.

Sandor's face was a grimace of pain with semi-closed, unseeing eyes. In the morning of their first day on the Green Moon, Sansa would have run away from him if she had seen him like this.

But now that she had witnessed many other sides of him, she wanted to help him, if she could. Besides, a lady didn’t abandon family members if they turned angry, yelled, or even squashed her belongings. She should try to reason with them.

Crouching before Sandor, she grasped his hands with determination. “Please stop. There's no need for this.”

Wall filler dripped from his hands to hers.

“Keep talking if you can’t sing,” he demanded, and now his voice was a plea, not an order.

“You _knew_ you crushed the wall because you’re too strong, and then you held it in place," Sansa assumed wildly. "You looked so normal. That was awesome. They couldn’t see anything wrong with you.”

“What does that help if I’m not normal?” Sandor snarled. “Remember the doctor? The things in my blood?”

“Maybe Mr. Baelish isn’t normal,” Sansa argued back. “I’ve seen him somewhere. But I don’t know where. His tunic and his buttons are weird. Besides, how did he know that we saw a bird? We were alone on top of that hill. How did he know to come here so soon? There’s too much coincidence-”

“Coincidence, repeat that, that sounds almost like music,” he blurted.

His hands were calm in hers now, and they were both dirty from the wall filler.

“Shouldn’t we clean up? Please, Sandor.”

He let her usher him to the sink. They washed their hands together in lukewarm water that never changed temperature, no matter how she might twist the taps to make it hotter or colder.

“Look!” Sandor pointed at the very small white patch on the outer wall, near the curtains, with newly clean hands. “I damaged it earlier when I tried to adjust the curtains. Or I wouldn’t know where the wall filler was, nor how it worked. The walls are of lousy quality. But I didn’t go as far as to make a hole, that's when-”

“-when you were angry,” she completed his thought. “But you’re not angry anymore, are you?”

Sandor shook his head, his expression wonderfully calm, just as she liked it. "Your voice helps," he murmured, pulling his fingers across his forehead as if to chase away some pain. "I don't know why. No one else's does."

His confession flattered her, bringing a small smile to her lips. Her voice was special to him.

“I know a song,” she offered. “If you still want to hear one.”

“Go ahead,” he replied with interest, waiting eagerly.

She intoned a sombre, solemn tune, very rhythmic and perhaps fit for dancing. She had forgotten the verses, knowing only that they spoke of winter. Maybe she would remember them one day.

"Can I get rid of this while you're singing?" he asked, gesturing at the bucket.

She nodded between the notes.

Sandor emptied the wall filler residue into a large waste bin next to the fridge. Then he carefully washed out the bucket in the sink.

“With some luck, the pipes can take this shit without getting cluttered,” he commented with suspicion, eyeing the decidedly primitive installations of their housing. When he was done, he looked calmer than ever, very sane and normal: her trusted companion in this strange new world.

Sansa finished her song and was about to exhale with relief when he suddenly grabbed the notebook with his drawing of her from the kitchen counter and tossed it unceremoniously to the bin.

She felt as if someone had put a stone in her throat and a knife in her heart. His drawing of her should have been precious to him like her voice… right? He would have drawn his loved ones like she had done... wouldn’t he? She had hoped he might consider her one of his loved ones, in fact. Was she wrong? Was she stupid?

“Why did you throw it away?” she asked with disbelief, pain evident in her voice. Hot tears sprang to her eyes.

“What’s wrong with you?” he looked puzzled, which only exacerbated Sansa's misery.

She struggled to express her thoughts rationally. “If you don’t want to keep your drawing of me… do you not care about me?”

He inched closer to her, tugged her chin gently and forced her to look into his eyes. They were wonderfully bright now, neither calm nor flat and dismissive.

“Why should I care for lousy drawings if I can have you?” he whispered with passion. “Don’t you see? All I wanted to remember from my past life was you. But I can’t draw at all, so I kept trying. Every single one of these clumsy figures is you. At the helm of a dragonship, in some long hall, in the pipes of some facility I’ve forgotten. And, then, guess what, you barge into my room and I realise you’re here, with me. Why would I want to keep some ugly drawings if I can look at _you_ , every day of my life in this bloody place?”

Her anger gave way to a profound shock with her own gut reaction to his confession. She longed to be his, but didn’t know how. And she was mortally afraid of offending the laws of gods and men, as well as of corrupting both him and herself with her woman's weakness, if she succumbed to the temptation. She yearned to tell him how she felt, but couldn't find any good words for it.

_One day, I will._

“I only remembered you when I saw you lying in that hospital bed,” she whispered instead. “I was humbled and felt guilty when I saw you drew me so prominently and I haden’t given you any importance. To know now that you drew only me… I am flattered, Sandor. And I’m happy you’re here with me now, though you weren't the companion I would have chosen when I woke. Then, I only wanted my family,” she clarified.

She paused, searching for what she could say to him now to make him understand how she felt. “You’re somehow mine, Sandor,” she finally said. “Despite breaking the walls and frightening me when you become angry. Despite having no idea what my being yours means to you.”

He seemed enthralled by her words.

“This,” he whispered, lowering her lips towards hers.

Spontaneously, she let her head fall backwards and closed her eyes.

Nothing happened.

She looked at him again.

His head had stayed in place; his expression hesitant, his lips slightly parted. His scars were so ugly from close-up that her heart hurt for him. His eyes looked warm, two grey beacons of sizzling coals catching all her attention.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered, continuing to look into his eyes.

He bent rapidly, his thin, scarred lips approaching hers like two birds of prey. Before she could form a thought, she was being thoroughly kissed. Was it for the first time? She didn’t know. His arms were around her back, her hands were in his hair. _Soft and lank,_ she noticed in a far corner of her mind. He smelled how she imagined summer should. His irregular skin and some facial hairs were painstakingly visible, but Sansa didn’t mind any of it, absorbed in the warm ardor of their kiss.

“Is this what it means to be married?” she whispered hoarsely when he stopped.

“I don’t give a rat’s arse for customs, in any buggering place. You call it marriage or dating, invent another name if you like, I don’t give a damn,” he said, spoiling the beauty and truth of their kiss. “I want you, is all.”

“Want me how?” Sansa shot back.

“You’re just like the Commissioner said, aren’t you?” he rasped, incredulous. “You’re playing a stupid little bird because you won’t put out on the first date, aren’t you?” he asked with heavy, demeaning suspicion in his deep voice. “You’ll just treat me like your fool. Make me guard you, pay your dinners.”

She had even less idea now what he meant, other than not finding her sincere, and that judgment hurt, _stung_ , more than it should. Why did she value his opinion so much? They had only just met!

“How in seven hells can you kiss me back like you just did and pretend to have no idea what you’re up to?” He sounded exasperated now.

“I don’t _know_!” Sansa protested, emphasising every word. Did he just call her a liar? An… an actress? That profession was as improper as dancing.

“It felt natural to react as I did,” she answered truthfully when her indignance abated. She had responded to him, yes, but she didn’t think he would believe she had started something more between them of her own volition. Was she awful and despicable?

He brooded in silence, processing her words slowly, like a very old robot model that had just malfunctioned.

But robots didn’t exist.

And he had been warm and malleable while holding her, not a cold, metallic machine. His large form had molded itself gently to fit around hers, both of them human and soft beyond measure.

After a long while, he continued quietly, “But if you were asking me earlier to compare this world with the one we forgot, I can only tell you what I noted on the margin of the bloody books they gave us. I wanted to have a record of the main differences, not to get myself killed for doing something stupid. In our world, a man shouldn’t make a woman his outside the bonds of marriage. But it still happens a lot, for many reasons. And here it also happens a lot, except that they don’t care if people are married or not when they get together.”

“What do they care for over here, in your honest opinion?” Sansa asked with genuine curiosity.

“Freedom.” He shrugged. “Do they have it? I don’t know. I have my doubts. Do I care if they have it? No. Is it as important as they think? I can’t tell.”

“What do you care for?” she continued her gentle inquisition.

“Nothing,” he reacted brusquely.

This was too much of a disappointment, after her long day. At that moment, the next logical step of sleeping in the same bed with her husband, which she had been considering in the most hidden corner of her weak woman’s heart, became far more than she could handle.

“I can’t share the bed with you,” she declared pridefully. “We have only just met.” The voice of an elderly woman recited wise precepts in her head, claiming that courting had to last for at least seven months before marriage was approved and sealed by good-natured parents of both bride and groom.

She was parentless, unable to remember if mother and father were good to her or not, and her eyes began to sting, swelling with unshed tears.

She stared firmly at the couch, covered with a thin white blanket, positioned in front of a low table and a big black box on a massive stand, in hope that Sandor would take her subtle hint and occupy it.

“As you wish,” he barked. Misunderstanding her completely, he stormed off to the bed in the other end of the small flat they shared, separated from the main living area by a flimsy foldable screen.

Sansa gave a deep sigh and decided to sleep. To her surprise, the couch was softer and more comfortable than it looked. She lay down too eagerly and felt a small, hard object stuck in her ribs. Retrieving it revealed a black pad with some primitive button-shaped commands instead of a flat screen with colourful, beeping sensors.

_Sansa, you fool. Flat screens don’t exist._

Putting the little machine carefully to the ground, in case it had important functions she didn’t yet understand, Sansa took her precious notebook with memories from the low table where she had left it. She leafed through her drawings of her beloved family, rereading her notes about each of them, hoping fervently that Ygritte was wrong and Sam right about his faith, for then she would see them in afterlife.

When she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore, she covered herself, hugging her most precious possession tightly to her chest. Her last conscious thought stole treacherously towards Sandor. If he didn’t draw his family, would he be all alone if there was a life after this one?

With that thought heavy on her young mind, she gave herself over to her dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.


	10. Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update was written during long distance travel that didn’t go exactly as planned.
> 
> I wrote it to keep myself a bit positively occupied.
> 
> Uploaded on a brief WiFi respite.
> 
> It’s very imperfect, but perhaps not entirely unreadable.
> 
> I’ll see your comments, if any, in a few days.
> 
> Thank you for reading.

 

**Ten**

The robots should have brought him his armour by now. They were bloody late. It was time he ordered newer models. Still he remained attached to the old clinking ones, maybe because they were uglier than him. Perhaps he ought to have them reprogrammed, to ensure their proper functioning.

Unlike the bloody serving machines, his weapons and protective suits were state of the art. He couldn’t accept anything less if he was to be successful in... In doing what?

The purpose of his meticulously cultivated belligerence eluded him.

He couldn't give a straight answer to himself as to why it was important that he be armed at all.

Opening the eye under the familiar, deep, hated scar that stretched unpleasantly, he glimpsed a yellowish, sickly-coloured ceiling.

_ What in seven hells? _

The steel-plated walls of his private resting chamber were cool and plain grey.

He rose brusquely, remembering.

His landing on the Green Moon.

And Sansa _. _

That melody in her voice which made him feel at ease, instead of lashing out to unload his anger.

A primitive bed creaked under him, hard and too short; the sound of dry wood breaking. His arse had sunk into it during night, almost piercing the thin, rubbery mattress. He rose menacingly from the ill-suited furniture despite that there was no one around him whom he should threaten.

Wearing only baggy, black underpants, he still sweated like a pig.

Unlike the robots and the advanced killing tools he had obviously just dreamed of, air conditioning must exist, he concluded.

_ Even on the Green Moon,  _ he thought with contempt about the place, terribly unsure if he had any good reason for his arrogant attitude.

Uncomfortably devoid of any driving purpose, objective or direction, he aggressively folded the screen separating his miserable bedroom from the rest of the flat, finding brief joy in the brusque action.

Sansa wasn't in the kitchen. He realised he'd expected to see her right there, preparing tea for both. Wasn't it something wives did for their husbands? But not on the Green Moon? Maybe women only served food and drinks as part of their paid jobs.

It was too hot for tea anyway.

He remembered people also fucked for money.

Seven hells, but it was probably too hot for that too.

Sansa was offered such prestigious position by the creepy maester.  _ No, not maester _ .  _ Maesters don't exist. Commissioner for Public Health. _

A fine, nosy gentleman with power to lock up loonies who dreamed of spaceships, before employing their wives to work on their backs. The memory of Baelish’ offer to Sansa made Sandor imagine he was crushing him, like he might squash a green bug that escaped quarantine, capable of transmitting a dangerous disease from outer space. He wondered what quarantine was and couldn’t remember with precision. Insects, however, lived on earth. There was nothing in space. Only darkness and faraway stars. Be that as it may, making Baelish piss his pants from fear would be a most joyful endeavour.

_ Much better than folding screens. _

He recalled women were free to do as they pleased on the Green Moon and caught himself wishing that they weren’t. On another day, he would give a damn about what women could or couldn’t do, but today he felt like a jealous ass. Worse, he wasted a moment wallowing in what could only be described as lack of civility on the Green Moon.

Being awful almost gave him purpose.

Was he always like that? What did that make him?

A primitive display in the living room caught his attention: a large, square box instead of a thin plasma screen, dating from the time of the First Men by the looks of it, thousands of years ago. 

Sandor wasn’t sure if plasma existed as a substance. His brain was unable to take a rational decision on the matter, suggesting both that it did and that it did  _ not _ with equal ferocity. Perhaps he had been drinking the night before, some illegal strongwine from the Green Moon, and he now suffered from hangover. But wait... He  _ was _ on the buggering Green Moon. How could a product be smuggled to the place where it originated from? It made no sense.

He couldn’t make two and two out of it.

Where in seven hells was he coming from?

Not from heaven, but decidedly not from here. And there had to be a good answer to his question, even if robots and plasma didn’t exist. Without any proof, he thought they might. Just like spaceships.

But he intended to keep his madness to himself, not sharing it with anyone, Sansa included. In case she betrayed his trust and sold him to the good Commissioner out of fear of Sandor’s overly friendly, wall and door-breaking personality.

The primitive display had one large and a few smaller buttons. He might be able to turn it on to check what's up by logging into inter-planetary network with privileged access as… As what? He didn’t know what position he occupied in the society of his origin nor why he thought himself entitled to such special rights.

But of course there was no such thing as inter-planetary network, that was only a bad dream.

This here was real. He should dress and get to work in the bloody bar. Craster’s, was it? Maybe he had overslept his shift and Sansa was already there.

He pressed the big button on the miserable display, wondering if it would explode and turn into burning plasma or morph into something marginally familiar or usable.

Rather than dirty, worn out or backward as everything else around him.

Nothing happened. The device obviously malfunctioned. Why did he expect any different.

He chuckled contemptuously at himself.  _ Pitiful. _

When he was about to smash the useless screen into pieces, the rampage forward made him step on a little black box that stung his bare foot.

The display came to life from the contact with his bony, excessively large heel.

The creep Commissioner, Baelish, advertised his famous institution for mental well-being in mellow voice. A warm welcome to patients from the whole of the Green Moon.The sound was cracking and of lousy quality. Not a word was being mentioned about honest sex-trade as side business to all the shrink stuff.

Sandor wondered if he could make a living from that or if a pretty face like Sansa’s was a must. Maybe ugliness wouldn't be a problem. The customers wouldn’t have to look into his eyes, they’d be more than welcome to focus on other parts of his anatomy.

From there, his imagination jumped to having sex with his wife.

Recent memories rushed unbidden into his consciousness, too few and yet too important. He needed to make more of them.

His leg wound, the stupid weakness it gave him. Sansa holding his hand when he woke. Sansa accepting his invite to a date. Sansa strolling with him through the unknown city, at ease in his company. He was done for. He had dared hope for marriage that wasn’t only on paper and he couldn’t shake it off.

When it concerned him, it was a done deal. She was his wife. Divorce didn't exist in his head.

But it did on the bloody Green Moon.

The hospital image on display changed abruptly into two juxtaposed portraits. One showed a dishevelled man with long, greying brown hair, and another bugger, a ginger, a happy-faced giant. Both were older than Sandor, in their early forties. The red letters in the middle claimed preposterously: “ _ Choose the President of the Green Moon. This Sunday. Remember that you can also change the world _ .”

_ Right. _

The first robot candidate was called Mance Rayder and the second Tormund Giantsbane. Sandor wouldn’t pick any of them to run a robot repair facility, and much less an entire world. With such leaders, it was no wonder that undesirable customs like divorce existed.

“Sandor,” a crumpled blanket on the couch behind his back said timidly. A nest of tousled red hair dived out, explaining where Sansa was all along, tucked in as a three months old.

“It’s you, right?” Her voice was even more musical than he remembered it and it worked like an immaterial balm on him, erasing the compelling longing to shatter objects and people from his whole being. 

“Who else?” he replied, feigning indifference.

Her eyes were confused. She stretched her arms towards him, bare until above the elbow where the bell-shaped dark blue sleeves of her T-shirt begun.

“Sandor,” she called him.

Was she was asking for his help to wake up?

She was wasting her time. He wasn’t the helpful type.

He sat on the floor in front of her, crossing his huge legs with difficulty, and gave her a square, fixating look. To his surprise, her hands landed on his sweaty shoulders, light as bird feathers.

As soon as she was anchored to him, she began explaining her trouble in an unstoppable, shuddering waterfall of words.

“I had a horrible dream,” she claimed. “Dr Baelish concluded I was mad. He locked me up in a castle high up in the sky and he gave me medicine so that I stop seeing spaceships. I strove to listen to him, for my own good, but I couldn’t stop hallucinating. Wolf-ships came every night, piloted by my family, but  none of them could see me in my captivity. It was as if I didn’t exist. As thought I was made of water or thin air.”

“Everyone has idiotic dreams from time to time,” he offered. “They don’t mean anything.”

She pondered his words. Her gaze became clearer.

_ Wolf-ships.  _ He’d never seen one. Dragonships, yes. Not that he’d tell her. He felt as if he ought to have forgotten all about them because they were now out of his reach forever, but he wasn’t able to, due to some inborn defect only he possessed.  _ Talking about defects… _

Wasn’t his face was more than enough?

He couldn’t help but notice that Sansa’s long legs were bare under the thin blanket, and that she had slept with her precious drawings of her family, but not with him.

Would that he had been her notebook overnight, a cherished, inanimate object in her tender hands.

“Could you please switch it off?” she gazed tiredly behind his back, at one future President of the Green Moon and one future loser.

He pivoted while sitted, just enough to repeatedly hit the big button on display. This time it worked miracles. Maybe if he hit it harder, the air conditioning would start in their suffocating flat. The box blackened. The girl’s blue eyes brightened further, gaining in sharpness and focus. The flat was still too hot and growing warmer by a second.

“Would you mind if I...” her words dwindled into uncertainty, but one of her hands flew from his shoulder to the craters of his scars, which were waiting stupidly within her reach. He almost snarled at her for transgression. But her touch stopped him, holding him in place, unwelcome and yet desired zealously. Just there, at the ruin. When her long fingers skirted the deeper crevices, he could feel the tenderness of her caress, causing small needles to travel down his spine, and when they turned to higher, insensitive ridges, he missed it.

He was left speechless. He was almost certain no one had ever done this to him.

“I’m sorry,” she apologised when he didn’t respond. “I shouldn't be curious. I think that my mother used to say so. It isn't polite.”

Her hand dropped. He caught it instantly and put it back where it was, his own palm lingering over hers.

She smiled warmly. “So it’s okay? It doesn’t hurt you or anything?”

He shrugged.

“It’s too warm here,” she complained when he never spoke.

“Maybe it’s better at Craster’s,” he found his words. “They have ventilators”

“Our shift only begins tonight,” Sansa said, “we are entitled to rest.”

“You think we’ll rest if you keep your hands on me?” he asked incredulously.

She didn’t seem aware of any consequences of her actions while he was increasingly grateful that the shorts he was wearing were both opaque and too big.

Her hands froze. Her eyes were on his naked chest now. Her cheeks were flaming. Maybe she was getting a hint of what she was doing to him. Perhaps she wasn’t as innocent as she looked.

To his disappointment, she looked back up, straight into his face. So she was just gaining courage to do that, wasn’t she?

“How did you get hurt?” she surprised him by asking bluntly, undeterred by his taciturn reluctance and arrogance.

“I dont know!” he finally found his snarling voice. “I hate my face, I know that much.”

“It must have been a terrible accident,” Sansa proclaimed solemnly.

“I don't think so,” he instinctively rebelled against that assessment despite having no clue what had actually happened.

“Who would have done such a thing of purpose?” Sansa wondered. “It had to be a tragic occurrence.”

She had imperceptibly drawn him closer to her. His lips weren’t far from hers.

“I don’t know,” he whispered, his raspy, burned voice breaking at the end of the sentence. He felt like her captive, at her mercy, chained by two soft hands, unable to escape his imprisonment. 

“Mr Baelish and Ygritte ruined our date last night,” she said tremulously, half-closing her eyes. “We didn’t have peace.”

“What does that mean?” Suspicion was born in him, the wish to reject her with words before it was too late and he was completely caught in her net like some rare, gaping, stupid fish. There had to be something she wasn’t telling him. She must need something from him or why would she look so willing to give him this?

“You said you knew what goes on in marriage. I don’t,” she was nervous, barely able to speak and appeared painfully honest. “I hoped you’d know how a date should continue if a couple was left alone and undisturbed.”

“It depends on how you want it to end,” he rasped readily.

“I t-think,” she stuttered, “I didn’t want it to end last night. But I also couldn’t take it further after the inopportune visit to our apartment. You were so angry. You seem calm this morning. I watched you since you woke.”

_ What? _

He’d be damned to seven hells.

He claimed her lips and forgot he had a face.

They had done it before. She wouldn’t mind, would she? Not with such questions, not with such foolish wishes from his person.

Taking her in his arms, sneaking his hands under her broad T-shi, he caressed her bare back. She hadn’t been wearing a bra overnight. He didn't go for her teats, anxious to keep some of his brains, in case she’d make them stop. Their kiss lasted, long and supple. Sweat was everywhere, creating the crazy longing for different wetness in Sandor’s head.

“This isn’t a sin in marriage, right?” she murmured after a while. “Shouldn’t we wait a little?”

“A sin should be an act of evil,” he reacted. “What do you think?”

“It’s so sweet and it makes me feel frail,” she whispered. “A weakness can also be a sin, can’t it? But I still don’t want it over.”

He lay on his back on the floor dragging her with him. Her hair ended in his mouth. He took it out and kissed her again.

They must have squashed the little black box he’d stepped on earlier because the screen startled them both by returning to life.

A morose woman in her early sixties, with braided black hair, looked extremely worried, pointing a stick at the map of the Green Moon. “Today’s temperature in Castle Black is one degree lower than last year, I repeat, one full degree lower.”

“They should be grateful for that, shouldn’t they?” Sandor wondered, not understanding.

The signal was suddenly lost, leaving only noisy, white and grey, gritty snow on the display.

Sandor hit the big button again and the device went blissfully black.

Laying on top of him, Sansa took the muted screen as a sign to continue kissing him, very softly, in utter silence. He grabbed her butt while she seemed busy, felt the smooth texture of her thin underwear and placed her little, dressed cunt near his cock, to see how she would react. He wondered if that was how their date should end. Was she wet? He was reluctant to check just yet. Or would she hate him later, if he took matters too far and things didn’t turn to her liking?

Would she leave him if he hurt her, as soon as she found a moment to do so?

To his growling misfortune, someone banged loudly on their door.

“Maybe you should open it,” Sansa suggested between kisses, still focused on his face, oblivious to anything he might have in his pants.

“Maybe we should pretend we’re not here,” he disagreed with what she said, but proceeded to obey her nonetheless, setting her aside gently, getting bloody up.

He pulled the door open so hard that he almost unhinged it. “What?’ he asked aggressively.

It was their orange-haired neighbour, Ygritte.

_ Talk about spoiling dates. _

“Haven’t you heard?” the normally feisty girl looked genuinely distressed, he had to give her that.

“What?” Sandor repeated in a somewhat calmer, less murderous tone.

“The temperature has gone down! For a full degree! Haven’t you been listening to the morning news? It’s unheard of.”

“It’s still damn hot,” Sandor was’t getting the point at all.

“Jon’s right,” she seemed to be speaking to himself. “We’ve got to find the means to leave.”

“No one leaves the Green Moon,” Sansa said, appearing dressed behind Sandor’s back, in those extremely tight trousers she’d been wearing the night before. Her legs looked even more naked in them, just differently coloured. Blue rather than creamy. “There’s nowhere else to go,” she said matter-of-factly. “Is there?” she breathed out. Hope coloured in her voice, making it tremble with positive expectation.

“You two don’t get it. The temperature hasn’t lowered in thousands of years. It only ever  _ increases, _ ” Ygritte said convincingly.  “Our leaders make us believe that the reversal of the seasons is impossible. That the weather will stay warm forever. Eternal summer! We have to invest in cooling systems and water protection and all will be fine…” she sounded bitter. “Please come over to my place and I’ll explain what winter means if it should return. It’s not in the materials for newcomers because it should never happen. Besides,” she sounded nonchalant and friendly now, “I was so distressed by the news that I made too much food for breakfast for myself.”

Sandor wasn't buying her cordiality, but he could eat some, and information on winter was potentially serious. He’d love some colder weather, but not if it meant trouble now that he… he wanted to get back to his earned  _ rest  _ part _. _

With Sansa.

“I could make breakfast,” Sansa mentioned half-heartedly.

“You’ll invite me tomorrow?” Ygritte beamed. “That's lovely, thanks! Come on now, today’s my turn!”

Sansa looked stunned. “Err, the invitation. Yes, of course. I will. Tomorrow, I mean. I… I’m not hungry today. Might I skip breakfast?”

She was so beautiful when she strove to maintain her composure.

“She’s our neighbour,” Sandor pointed out. “Isn’t it a sin to throw away food?” he vaguely remembered. “We could sit down, have a bite, help her finish what she’s got.”

Sansa looked even more surprised now. “I thought you didn't appreciate her company.”

Another man would shrug. Sandor stood like a boulder. “I don’t,” he said flatly. “But I’m hungry. I’ll be on my best behaviour,” he gave an evil, unfriendly grin to Ygritte who was completely unphased by his antics.

Decency began with getting dressed, he was guessing.

He sauntered back to where he’d slept and picked up a smelly T-shirt and a bit longer shorts from the floor.

His stomach howled like a ship’s engine starting, after long-lasting repairs in a space dock.

Xxxx

Xxxx

Ygritte called the food scrambled eggs, freshly made, warm, smelling great. There wasn’t enough for Sandor. He swallowed what he got in a few bites while Sansa had barely just started on a fourth of the portion he devoured. He wondered if there were eggs for breakfast in his lost world and couldn’t remember. Robots didn’t eat them, that much was certain.

Their fiery neighbour talked nonsense of past miseries. Sandor only half-followed. Stories too incredible to be true. Scary local folk tales, most likely. Winter was a hoax on the Green Moon.

“The people here were eaten by ice monsters in the past?” Sansa asked incredulously.

Her blue gaze was shrouded again, but not with sleep. It contained an indigo cloud of anger at injustice and an infallible decision to set the world to rights.

Sandor almost laughed at her enthusiasm, decided not to. Mocking her wouldn’t bring him any closer to her pants.

“Your Governor can’t mount a defence to protect you?” Sansa wondered with indignation.

“There’s no Governor. Our Presidents and the magistrates do their best, but if the cold winds begin to blow there won’t be much anyone can do,” Ygritte explained coldly. 

Magistrates sounded familiar to Sandor. He was pretty certain they existed in his old world. He thought they did a lousy job so perhaps it was the same over here.

Then, with his uncommonly sharp hearing, he registered… scratching from his and Sansa’s theoretically  _ empty _ apartment. And he didn’t think they had mice.

“Give me a minute,” he said, leaving lazily to surprise the intruder, trying not to look rushed. “I’d like to put on a clean T-shirt, maybe have a shower.”

“No, wait!” Ygritte tried to stop him which only made him go faster.  _ Our mouse is your accomplice in crime, isn’t he? Or she? Do you work with Baelish? What do you want from Sansa and me, girl? _

It was a he.

The pretty boy, Jon, was stealing Sansa’s precious notebook with her drawings. The only souvenir she had from her family.

Sandor was about to grab him by the neck and pin him to the wall of Ygritte’s apartment. With some luck, the masonry would collapse if he pushed him hard enough. The happy couple could then spend the next few days rebuilding.

But just before committing that inevitable act of aggression, he realised Jon was genuinely distressed by his finding, pale and contrite, on the verge of crying like a girl over a thickly scribbled page.

And Sansa was right behind Sandor, holding his upper arm, leaning her chin on his shoulder. He wished his tunic was sleeveless and imagined her palms wandering lower, over his waist and into his underwear.

“I’m truly sorry, miss,” Jon told Sansa politely, “I didn’t mean to intrude on your privacy. I just wanted to steal  _ his _ drawing of the dragon and I seem to have found your memories instead,” he handed her the notebook with impeccably good manners.

Sandor would have at least hit him if it weren't for the idiotic innocence on his face. Whatever this was, it wasn't an act like Ygritte’s and it didn't come with second intentions. Jon wanted his drawing of Sansa piloting a dragonship, with the emphasis on a latter depiction.

“Well that would be in the dustbin over there,” Sansa explained courteously. “Sandor wasn’t satisfied with his artistic work,” she made an understatement.

“I’ll take it,” Sandor said coldly, moving towards the trash faster than Jon.

“But you didn’t want it? You didn’t need it if I was here with you?” Sansa asked.

“Doesn’t mean I’ll give it to him,” Sandor replied jealously, retrieving his notebook and clutching it to his chest. “Or to anyone else,” he felt a foolish need to emphasise.

Sansa’s lips curved in a smile and she appeared content with his stupid, chivalrous gesture.

Ygritte coughed ostensibly. “We were about to leave,” she said. “Come on, Jon, I don't think that they fancy more eggs or anything else from us.”

“Tell me about them dragons if you don't want to let me see one,” Jon pleaded.

“What's that to you?” Sandor wondered.

“‘It feels like madness but it might not be,” Jon affirmed sternly. “My father arrived at the Green Moon after my mother, carrying a bag of golden dragons. His money built us a home before my parents got jobs and settled in as everyone else. But there was more to it than the coin. He fancied himself born to a dragon family in heaven. They flew spaceships that could spit fire. He dreamed about them every night and he’d tell us in the morning that one day we’d see them. Mom taught me he was just mad from very early age. That sickness ran in  _ his  _ family but not in hers, according to her recorded memories. I pretended not to believe in his words because I didn’t want to make Mom sad, but I often wondered... My father’s ancestors supposedly had a special gene or something that went with the technology they developed.”

“His Dad was trying to build a dragonship in the last year, but he ended up burning their house instead,” Ygritte told Sansa. “Jon was lucky to be on duty that night. Conflagration caught his parents in their sleep. The fire brigade was too late. The funeral was magnificent. Everyone loved them, despite that his Dad was a loony.”

“Don’t call him that,” Jon rebelled.

Sandor’s guts clenched savagely from the notion of an unknown couple being burned alive in their sleep _.  _ Absentmindedly, he felt his missing ear.  _ Burned, burned, burned…  _ Terror was in him and he was six year old. There was no escape.

“But Ygritte, you were helping your friend to search for  _ dragons  _ in my chambers… in my and my husband’s flat I mean,” Sansa protested. “Why did you do that if you think Jon is being foolish?”

The paralysing fear vanished from in his head. He was in present, big and strong. And he held his stupid notebook harder when Sansa mentioned him as her husband.

“Temperature has dropped for a whole degree, miss,” Ygritte lectured Sansa. “Haven’t you heard?”

“There’s a special place which gives clairvoyance on the Green Moon,” Jon interrupted. “ A high ridge of hills we call the Wall north of Castle Black,” he clarified. “It’s a whole day hike to get there. Nothing is actually built over there, there’s only more lush forest like everywhere else on the Green Moon,” he explained. “But when you approach those hills and climb on top, you slowly become less sure about the universe being as it is and about spaceships non being real. Mind you, you’re still not sure that they are real. But to stand on that invisible barrier feels as if all certainties planted into you by good society and proper education have been purified from your being. And you are left free to dream and to assume.”

“What else do people assume? If space is nothing to them?” Sandor wondered. “That they are rich and clever?”

“Those born here very little out of the ordinary,” Ygritte replied sceptically. “I tried. I know. It was a major disappointment.”

“Maybe because you are already free,” Sandor reminded her coldly of what her books preached. “Isn’t that your way of life? Nice and normal. So different than the madness of backward newcomers who commit crimes on your wonderful moon until they settle down.”

He expected a quarrelsome answer, but Ygritte ignored him, giving a sad, emotional look to Jon. She’d let him in her pants alright.

Jon returned to her a rather intensive,  _ smouldering _ gaze, but then looked away, either bored or  _ feigning _ boredom, like Sandor. That was worrying. Every enemy Sandor had encountered so far had been a little predictable. But this boy here was a loose cannon, and Sandor didn’t even know to what end.

“In our daily life, freedom often means that we can change our mind about whom to date every hour or so,” Jon declared. ‘The time it takes on average to have sex or to get married for fun and then have sex.” He gave an uncharacteristically  _ patient  _ look to Ygritte. “You can have the time of your life with almost anyone, Ygritte. Why obsess with me? I’m not into relationships. I find it uninteresting.”

It was Ygritte’s turn to look away and refuse to speak.

“I don’t want the paper hassle of a marriage,” she squeezed out after a long while. “And we don’t have to last forever,” she stressed. “Only be together for a while. What would be wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” Jon shrugged. “But it’s not for me.”

Sandor didn’t get what their problem was. Perhaps these two could fuck in those lush hills, maybe that was the liberation they required. Then they might stop swallowing each other with their eyes, while keeping their solitary hands uselessly to themselves.

Not even Sansa with her good manners and obsession with the absence of sin was that stern towards herself, from the precious little intimacy Sandor was able to witness when they decided to continue their date this morning. He hoped, he almost prayed to see more of her abandon very soon.

“What do newcomers feel on the Wall?” Sansa broke the newborn silence in the flat.

_ Our flat,  _ Sandor thought idiotically, beginning to love its sick yellow colour. Even the bloody heat.

“I don’t know,” Jon said, “I was born here, just like Ygritte.”

“But your Mom arrived pregnant from heaven-“

“My Mom is none of their business, Ygritte!” Jon retorted angrily. “We barely know these people and there’s no love lost between us.”

“What I wanted to say is, he’s still a newcomer in a way, he wasn’t conceived here,” Ygritte didn’t surrender in her views. “That fact can make him prone to madness, not his old man.”

“What did you see that you want to go back to that place?” Sandor reformulated Sansa’s question to Jon.

“I climbed to the Wall for the first time after the funeral,” Jon’s eyes were sincere, perturbed. “And I sensed that a dragonship was on its way here, searching for me. It would arrive too late to find my father. It might take me away from the Green Moon if I so wanted. Bring me home, wherever that is. Since then I can’t stop thinking of it. Or maybe its my father’s family madness that is finally getting to me now that he’s gone for good. If that’s the case,” he swallowed hard, “then I’m happy my Mom’s not here to see it. It would kill her…” he whispered,  “if fire hadn’t done that already.”

“How interesting,” Sandor said sardonically, not admitting his growing interest in the whole scheme. He wasn’t mad. Spaceships existed. If he remembered how to find one, he could choose where to go with Sansa. He could offer her the world. Not be stuck on the Green Moon.

“If I am to take part in this lunacy, I’ll need my jumpsuit,” he told Ygritte, “I know you took it from me in the hospital, so please don’t waste my time by trying  to tell me that it doesn’t exist.”

Jon and Ygritte exchanged undecided looks. 

“It’s against the rules,” she said. “And besides, your clothing is far too warm,” she warned him, “you’ll drop dead before you reach the Wall.”

“My death is my own business, not yours,” Sandor replied rudely. “I can go for a walk in the countryside without you if you prefer. I’m sure that the choice of hills near Castle Black is rather limited,” he assumed arrogantly. “We can do without guides.”

“Sandor!” Sansa exclaimed like an flying instructor admonishing a ten year old who stepped in a pile of alien shit. “We might not find the place without them.  Or we’ll walk for a week and suffocate or pass out from heat. Everything is green in the surroundings of Castle Black. We’ll never remember our past nor what we did to deserve coming here.” Her face was transformed with longing.

She’d return to her family, wouldn’t she? She wouldn’t go with him...

_ I’m not so sure that I want to remember, Sansa.  _ He opened his mouth to inform her of his wishes in the matter and immediately decided against it. He wasn’t craven. Past was nothing to him.

“You’ll have your suit in no time,” Jon said. “ On one condition.”

“What?” Sandor and Sansa asked in unison.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Ygritte thundered. “If you two find a way to leave the Green Moon, we’re coming with you.”

“Fine with me,” Sandor promised dryly.

Jon birthed a cold black look and said nothing at all.

Sandor wondered about his true plans. Perhaps Ygritte had lied for him again, wishing to cover up for her would-be boyfriend’s unknown, possibly sinister intentions.

Well, he could kill him, he realised, if need be.

He could kill them  _ all _ .

That chill certainty about himself frightened him. He didn’t cherish it. Not at all. It was just a fact and a constant about his whole being. Maybe he was a malfunctioning robot that didn’t exist.

He remembered the fat doctor, Sam, and the unknown sickness he warned Sandor about. Insects harboured in his blood. Little nasties swimming in his veins. He clenched his fists.

“Sandor, what’s wrong?” Sansa asked with genuine worry, sounding as if she could look into him, see through him, know him so much better than he could ever know himself. He felt like a boy caught stealing green fruit or pulling his sister’s hair.

He felt naked, exposed.

He was more unhinged by her perceptiveness concerning him than from forgetting his past and all reasons and forces that had ever driven him to exist and draw breath.

Unable to bark at her, he decided to brush off her concern. “It’s nothing,” he said curtly.

And yet he was so grateful for the sweet music she gave him in her voice. With every single word.

“It’s just the heat,” he muttered. “Would that I could jump out of my skin,” he invented an excuse.

“If you say so,” she singsonged. “It’s very warm indeed.”

She didn’t look as if she were hindered by the weather. Her skin wasn’t clammy but rather smooth, dry and velvet-like. Maybe her armpits smelled of flowers. Not that he would mind a bit more pungent body scent on her end. Not at all.

Or maybe she was an ice monster in hiding, about to devour him in his sleep and punish him for his continuous daring towards her person.

He’d stay close to her. She’d speak… seven heavens, she might sing at occasions... His demons would be kept at bay. And she’d be safe with him, wherever she decided to go.

He rasped indifferently, “Let’s scale that Wall.”

“This way,” Jon said decisively, looking like a third candidate for president on a Sunday election.


	11. Eleven

**Eleven**

“You want a jumpsuit as well?” Ygritte asked Sansa while pulling loose her bushy ponytail. Freed from the yellowish string, her long, curly, orange-brown mat of hair looked slightly unwashed. Or perhaps it was only uncombed, unlike Sansa’s auburn curls, always brushed meticulously until they shone.

(Even when she had to disentangle her locks with her fingers for half an hour, in the tiny bathroom of her and Sandor’s flat. He had asked her dryly if she had drowned in the toilet, and she was compelled to laugh, reassuring him that she was perfectly fine. Ygritte and Jon had been waiting, and Sansa ended up embarrassed for causing a delay in departing.)

“There weren't many women who came to the Green Moon dressed like that,” Ygritte continued thoughtfully, “but we do have a few.”

Sansa hoped she wasn’t blushing. She wondered if Ygritte had somehow glimpsed the spark of interest in her eyes.

With eagle eye, the dishevelled nurse pulled out a blue and grey lady's attire from the rack overloaded with newcomers’ clothing, in the unpleasantly  _ mint _ -green hospital welcoming them upon arrival in which she worked. “This one, perhaps.”

Measuring Sansa with her sharp gaze, she added, “Or maybe it’d be too small for you.”

Ygritte wasn't much shorter, and Sansa felt it was unfair and discourteous from her to point a finger at her height so bluntly.

“There weren't many women who arrived here from heaven _ at all _ ,” Jon said very seriously. “It’s mostly men and of the worst kind. Sam and Satin are exceptions,” he went on. “Maybe Grenn and Pyp as well, but I have yet to make up my mind.”

With that, he gave a questioning look to Sandor, as if the same ongoing scrutiny applied to him.

Sansa spontaneously made a step towards her husband, as though she had to protect him from Jon's judgment, earning a curious, brief smirk from her terribly tall spouse, who was changing clothing and wearing only his underwear.

_ Like this morning. _

She had been in his arms only a few hours earlier and her whole being tingled from the memory.

Contrary to how moved she felt, he seemed completely indifferent to her now.

Perhaps men didn’t experience intimate recollections so profoundly because they were so much stronger. 

Sandor pulled his jumpsuit on and zipped it up with such force that Sansa expected him to break the zipper. Miraculously, the mechanical closure stayed intact. She hoped he wouldn't ruin any walls here, in front of their acquaintances on the Green Moon. Hopefully Jon and Ygritte wouldn't think of him as a mad newcomer if he did something violent like that.

Sansa told herself that the unwanted nightly visit of Commissioner Baelish was a good reason for Sandor’s anger. It wasn’t as if he had started crushing masonry out of malice or from appetite for needless destruction.

Besides, Ygritte and Jon were almost their friends, weren't they? Jon and Sam had carried Sandor when he was wounded. Friends helped each other.

_ But it was their duty,  _ Sansa had to remind herself against her will.

Jon was a sworn brother of the Night’s Watch: a special guard, clad in black, that maintained the order in the bristling city of Castle Black, and in its immediate surroundings.

And Sam was the maester- _No,_ _doctor_. (Sansa had to keep recalling the correct, existing occupation, unlike that of the _maester_ which was only the fruit of her too vivid imagination). A doctor who worked in the hospital for newcomers, just like Ygritte. In the same institution where the illustrious Commissioner-Baelish-smelling-on-mint ran a _closed_ wing for _crazy_ newcomers who couldn’t help seeing or imagining spaceships.

Sandor and Sansa had sighted one the evening before, in the shape of a mockingbird, just before the Commissioner's surprise appearance that had ruined their first date.

_ How did the Commissioner know? _

Perhaps none of the people on the Green Moon who were in any way employed to deal with newcomers were exactly their friends. 

The notion was most disconcerting.

Sansa made a mental effort to set it thoroughly aside. It would be unbearably sad and terrible if she couldn’t trust people.

Her mind immediately returned to the much more interesting matter of dating. People who went out together called each other  _ boyfriends _ and  _ girlfriends,  _ according to the booklet with customs on the Green Moon. The problem with those expressions was that they sounded so ordinary to Sansa, not special at all.

Since this morning, she didn’t want to call Sandor her husband. That noble title was reserved for a wise man, much cleverer than her with her limited womanly abilities, whom she had to obey in all things in heaven.

And whom she could divorce and abandon instantly, should she so wish, on the Green Moon.

Initially, when they arrived, staying with him felt prudent and safe. She didn’t know anyone here. She was lost and shocked by the ways of this world.

Or was she too fast to adapt and embrace them? Did she sin by working at Craster’s? Or by dating her husband, rather than being his dutiful, silent, acquiescing wife?

Only a day later, practically  _ overnight _ , her safety no longer mattered, or rather, it did, of course it did, it always would, she realised, feeling cowardly because of her attitude towards her own well-being, but it had stopped being the foremost consideration on her anxious mind.

She had never felt audacious.

(Sandor calling her brave on his drawing of her piloting a spaceship was the most undeserved compliment anyone had paid to her.

And the most beautiful one.

Did she truly command a  _ dragon _ ship?

_ Don't be silly, Sansa. Stop daydreaming. Spaceships don’t exist!) _

Her attachment to Sandor was no longer about her lacking courage and dreaming of returning home, with his help, perhaps.

Yes, indeed, all her old reasons still lingered in her head, but, by the gods, would she  _ miss _ him if she exercised her new freedom and left him!

Her feelings for him were no longer based on anything she ought to do in their relationship to satisfy the demands of propriety.

_ Here or in heaven _ .

He was special to her.

“My wife doesn't want a jumpsuit,” Sandor barked contemptuously at Ygritte, surprising Sansa by answering for her, fitting the bill of the rude, intolerant, male newcomer on the Green Moon.

“Sansa has a tongue,” Ygritte snapped. “I don't remember asking  _ you _ about what she should wear.”

“I'm not sure,” Sansa replied hesitantly, too well educated to openly contradict her husband, allowing herself to hold the beautiful, alien garment on its hanger.  _ Stop it. Aliens don't exist. _ “But you’re right, this one is just not big enough for me,” she conceded. “It's your size, look!”  Spontaneously, Sansa positioned the jumpsuit against Ygritte, who appeared to be shocked by the gesture.

With shaky hands, the nurse retrieved it from Sansa and considered it for a little while.

“It's not my style,” she finally announced in a very neutral tone, contrasting her usual outspoken ways that bordered on rudeness. Very neatly and professionally, she hung the jumpsuit back.

“It's really not your cup of tea, is it?” Jon commented wryly. “Too old-fashioned I guess.”

Sansa was at a loss to understand him.

There was nothing antiquated about the jumpsuit. If anything, it looked more modern than the flashy Green Moon tops, and almost futuristic in comparison with Sansa's tent-like, overburdening dress in which she’d arrived from heaven: dark, long and broad, with many skirt layers. Wonderfully grey and covering the woman’s natural sin-provoking appearance to Sansa's liking.

“Fashion isn't at stake here,” Sandor explained matter-of-factly, adjusting the straps above the wrists of his huge black suit. “Mine's useful. The other's just fancy plastic.” 

“Yeah, I'm sure that yours can sing and dance,” Jon replied with irony, “but you forgot all your life until now, including the tricks your clothing might perform and the method to trigger them.”

"Perhaps," Sandor was nonplussed. "So what? What is it to you? Besides, I can go naked if I want. Isn't freedom your law?"

"You'd burn in the sun if you did that, but yes, you could do so. Self-harm is regrettable, but it’s not a crime,” Ygritte replied in her educational, nurse-tone. “Like this you might cook in your clothing. But why should any of us care for your welfare if you yourself don’t?”

"The gods would be displeased by such tragedy,” Sansa interrupted nervously, extremely worried for Sandor, caring for him very much. What if he passed out from heat because he was so stubborn? What if his barely healed leg wound became infected because of the dirty-looking suit? Her heart raced with worry.

"What gods?" Sandor reacted coldly to her courtesy.

"Maybe you could wear a T-shirt like all men here?" Sansa asked with concern, wishing to talk him out of his potentially dangerous idea.

He was in front of her in two steps, grasping her shoulders, making her look up to him. "I'll be fine," he rasped quietly.

She'd believe him  _ anything _ he told her in that deep, peaceful tone of his, standing so close to her. Just like before, in their little flat, it felt as if some magic had come between them, fragile and beautiful at the same time. Could a woman kiss a man in public on the Green Moon? Probably yes, but she didn't want any more of Jon's and Ygritte's curious stares at them as a couple.

She couldn’t understand why they both seemed to find her and Sandor together so  _ unusual _ , perhaps even  _ unacceptable _ , despite the proclaimed overall freedom of anyone dating anyone they wanted on the Green Moon.

_ There'll be time for kissing later, _ she fantasised. She and Sandor would come home in the evening, wouldn't they?

Going to the Wall and back was only a day’s walk.

Sandor's jumpsuit wasn't tight like the womanly model Sansa had held briefly. Following his body very loosely, it made him look square. Even bigger and more imposing than he was by nature.

“Like a mountain,” she murmured devotedly.

“Don't say that!” Sandor snarled. The magic between them wavered and almost disappeared.

“What I meant to say is that we’re on our way to see the mountains where we may remember our life in heaven,” she spoke quietly, compelled to lie in hope to appease him.

Jon, Ygritte, Sandor and Sansa were about to undertake an expedition to the Wall - a long, high range of lush hills north of Castle Black - where the memories the newcomers had lost when landing on the Green Moon might be restored.

Sandor came even closer to her. She could swear she was able to sense his body warmth and not only the heavy heat from the Green Moon, despite the dense layer of black plastic between them.

She lost her breath and couldn't continue speaking.

He rasped in a much calmer tone against the crown of her head, his breath a familiar breeze disturbing her auburn locks. “I know exactly what you meant."

“Do you?” she wasn’t sure how he could possibly know exactly what she meant or how she felt.

She had never felt like this before or she would remember.

Just like her love for her family hadn’t gone away, despite that all her concrete memories were gone, now stuck in a notebook as a series of clumsy and imprecise drawings.

"And you're right!" Sandor roared, startling her again. She resisted the urge to cover her ears like a frightened child.

"I just  _ hate _ the comparison you made, and I don't even know  why !" His continued protest slowly turned into a cry akin to whining, much too weak for his personality. He sounded hurt and bitter.

Sansa's heart leapt to him, abandoning her chest. Her hands followed the outreach of her spirit, flying up to his cheeks. "I didn't mean offence," she offered apologetically.

Lying was a sin. She shouldn’t have done it earlier. But he had frightened her and she had erred, instead of finding the perfectly elegant, kind and honest remark which would also make him feel at ease.

"We choose our attire, not our looks. Nor  _ stature _ ," she added very seriously, remembering Ygritte's impertinence about her height.

"I know that," he retorted very quietly. His breath had become deeper, as though her closeness was making him lose tension. It wasn’t the first time. It was like an elaborate pattern in his behaviour. He’d get extremely angry or uptight, and then relax slowly in her presence.

But why did he always have to be awful first?

It was clear to Sansa: it was all her fault. She wasn’t womanly enough. She should be more subtle and discreet, more refined and perfect in helping people in need. Especially her husband who seemed to require her assistance to dominate his naturally manly temper. She should practice her courtesies more, until she became truly impeccable and irreproachable.

She couldn’t be a septa anymore, she remembered with regret. That would have been the only guaranteed path to unspoiled womanhood.

Did septas exist?

Sandor was looking into her eyes now, searching for something different than a soothing word or a helping hand. His scars glimmered like the black plastic of his jumpsuit, never quite dry. She returned his gaze. His eyes were two grey, bottomless ponds in which anger mingled with other emotions she couldn’t read. She wished he’d tell her about them, but somehow she couldn’t imagine that he ever would.

His hands descended to her waist, warm and gripping, giving her the crazy feeling of longing to vanish in his arms. She must be sinful by nature to respond to him like that. The gods would never accept her service, even if septas existed. They’d find a worthier woman, one who didn’t find joy in a  _ sin,  _ which was merely tolerable in marriage.

Unworthy, overwhelmed, overtaken, she thought he'd kiss her now. Her whole body buzzed with anticipation. Men could surely do whatever they wanted, in heaven or on the Green Moon.

"We should go while it's still early," Jon interrupted apologetically. His unwanted stare towards them seemed a tad  _ sad _ now, rather than just curious or disapproving. "The walk is long and it'll only get warmer."

Sansa almost asked Jon why he felt sorrow all of a sudden and stopped herself just in time. Such query would most certainly be discourteous and impertinent. She didn’t want to be rude like Ygritte nor replicate Jon’s black, disapproving stares.

Ygritte equipped Sansa with a jar of sweet-smelling sun-cream, a linen blouse with long sleeves to put over her T-shirt, and a large, straw hat. "Keep your hair down," she counselled bluntly. "You'll sweat more, but burn less. If you’re lucky you might just avoid a headache in the evening."

xxxxxx

xxxxxx

The sun was not yet up when they left the hospital. Only the bright light on the horizon announced the strength of its imminent arrival. A few tender, rosy patches of dawn still lingered here and there on the morning sky. Despite that it was still early, the breakfast with Ygritte seemed like years ago. It had been much hotter in the flats than outside.

_ That’s why we were all awake at dawn. _

It was a fine day for a walk.

The city gates were a long, sinuous, vaulted passage, extremely ancient-looking. The heavy wooden doors gaped open at both sides of the scary tunnel, allowing for a pleasant, cool draft. Jon waved his cap at some of his fellow guards, stationed in the gates’ shade, black like crows.

Leaving Castle Black behind, Sansa longed to see the mountains, praying ardently that she might at least be able to remember her family. The gods had punished her by banishing her to the Green Moon. Surely they had a good reason for that despite that Sansa had forgotten it. They wouldn’t allow her to ever return home.

_ Or would they?  _ If she promised to be good all the time and kept her word!

The forest at the doors of Castle Black was far more beautiful than she remembered it from the occasion of her and Sandor’s arrival, with tall, slender trees full of golden-green leaves. Birds chirped merrily high up in their canopies. Deep rabbit holes occupied the irregular stretches of soil between chubby, gnarled roots, and an occasional squirrel ran up a tree trunk, fleeing from the unexpected hikers. The narrow path wound tirelessly forward. Soon, the city behind them was gone. Only the wood remained.

Sandor strode decisively next to Jon, not paying any attention to Sansa who had fallen a few steps back with Ygritte. Both men wore black, but Jon’s cap was white with a visor, casting a shadow over his face. Sandor's dear,  _ special _ head was bare. Perhaps the sun couldn't hurt his burns, but what of the other side?

It was too late to fret. Hats didn’t grow on tree branches like leaves. At least there was plenty of natural shade. It was much less hot than in the city streets, and the flats had been hot like seven hells in comparison. Here, in the ancient forest, despite the continuously rising temperature, it was still almost pleasant to stroll.

Irrationally, Sansa began regretting not wearing that beautiful jumpsuit, despite that she would surely cook in it at midday. Maybe it would make Sandor look back and walk with her.

Since Ygritte had mentioned it, Sansa  _ loved _ the idea, for vain reasons that made her feel ashamed and weak. The jumpsuits covered the body from the neck to the ankles, which was very good and adequate in Sansa's opinion. But they also looked even tighter than the Green Moon jeans and tiny tops. (Sansa had yet to dare wear such a top, preferring baggy T-shirts.) And yet, unlike the otherworldly Green Moon garments, they seemed oddly familiar. They might have been appropriate for ladies on some occasions in heaven.  _ A perfect interstellar travel outfit.  _ A thought came from nowhere. Or was it from her lost memories that were coming back?

Interstellar journeys didn’t exist.

The mountains loomed high on the horizon, still very far away.

She remembered how Sandor couldn’t take his eyes off her legs in jeans, when she had put them back on this morning. After they-

It was best not to ponder the sinfulness of what they did. Their morning together was continuously on her mind, no matter what else she did or thought about, like music playing in the background on her soul. The illicit beauty of their embrace. The closeness. The kisses.

Maybe Sandor would love to see her in a tight jumpsuit. She would want him to touch her entire body with his gaze, despite the shame and the weakness her wishes made her feel.

If he ever walked next to her or behind her, that is.

With all the talk of equality between men and women on the Green Moon, men still led the way.

“You don’t know where the Wall is, do you?” she asked Ygritte. Maybe that was the nurse’s reason for staying behind. She didn’t work with Jon. Perhaps only the people in the Night’s Watch knew the correct path.

“I do,” the other girl contradicted Sansa and stared at Jon with longing. Then she focused on  _ his _ behind, much like Sandor had studied Sansa’s legs. 

What if Ygritte was desperately in love with Jon? That simple truth didn’t occur to Sansa before. Naturally, he didn’t return her feelings because she was so unwomanly.

Much less womanly than Sansa.

But what was womanly? It was hard to say. Elegant, collected, measured and perfect was the closest answer. And, quite obviously, a good woman shouldn’t incite men to sin with her behaviour.  Once married, she should submit calmly to the wishes of her husband. In time, she might love him, but she should keep her feelings to herself.

Not show passion or initiative. 

_ Never _ impose what she wanted in her natural condition of imperfection.

Always be selflessly atoned to the wishes and needs of others.

_ Poor Ygritte, she must suffer so much!  _

Sansa chastised herself inwardly for being selfish and focused on her own problems and desires, neglecting being attentive and considerate towards the nurse.

To make things worse, Jon sounded so resentful towards Ygritte at occasions, for no apparent reason.  _ Almost rude. _

“Do you love him?” Sansa asked in a whisper.

Love was something beautiful and powerful. A unique spiritual condition and connection.

“Love is overrated, old-fashioned and boring,” Ygritte answered readily. “It makes us afraid to move on and live our life freely as we ought to. It keeps us in place.”

Sansa didn’t know what to make of her words. She had never heard a less poetic description of something as splendid as love.

“But you don’t want to  _ stop _ loving him?” she wondered fervently.

“That’s not the point!” Ygritte exclaimed. “Alright, one day Jon might admit that he wants me. We might have sex a few times and enjoy it. Then we’d lose interest in each other and move on. That’s all. It’s how it goes.”

“I don’t understand,” Sansa claimed honestly. “Why would it be indispensable to move on? Are you not free to decide how long you want to stay somewhere or with someone? For a day or for eternity?”

Ygritte chuckled. “Nothing lasts forever if you ask me. People always change their minds.”

“Be silent, please!” Jon commanded all of a sudden. “From here they can hear us.” He also looked more somber than usual.

“Who?” Sansa asked with apprehension, suddenly afraid of the low-growing plant-life with exuberant lemon and grapefruit coloured flowers right next to her.

_ Pansies? _

She wasn’t certain. They looked bigger and wilder on the Green Moon than the flowers she must have seen in heaven.

“We don’t really know,” Jon replied. “From this flower patch on, if you come too close to the invisible guards, you faint and you only come to your senses in Castle Black a few hours later, with a splintering headache. Believers like Sam say it’s the gods who keep us out of heaven. The newcomers can never return. Non-believers claim it’s the toxic smell of the flowers that makes the victims drunk. As a consequence, they sleepwalk back, forgetting everything. Those who can’t say whether there are gods and who don’t put their trust in scents imagine woods witches or thieves attacking travellers and dragging them away by force. But witches exist only in stories for little children, and no one was ever robbed here so what do the thieves get from their actions? Most people believe a little, but not all, of all these theories. Regardless of the truth, we’d best stay quiet if we want to reach the Wall.”

Ygritte surreptitiously left Sansa and approached Jon, beginning to march next to him. Sandor lagged behind, on purpose, perhaps. Sansa took it as a hint that she could walk next to him, which was exactly what she wanted, exhibiting an attitude which would be sinfully selfish in heaven, and excellent and proper on the Green Moon.

She succumbed to her wishes and enjoyed her transgression.

“Hey,” she said and felt silly. “It looks like we’re embarking on an adventure.” She had read about heroes and heroines discovering unknown worlds, hadn’t she? She could scarcely remember.

But no other worlds existed. There was only this one.

“I could do without, ” he snorted. “Adventure sounds like a lying and cowardly way to tell a man that he might die soon.”

Gods help her, she didn’t mean that. But even in the books some heroes lost their lives after deeds of bravery. Heroines cried for them as long as they lived. Such stories were terribly sad.

On an impulse, Sansa wrapped her arm around Sandor’s right forearm. Feeling the black plastic fibre of his suit, artificial and cold, she recalled the lovely warmth of his body, the soft hairs on his torso. His muscles had  moved under her fingers like restless waves, his hands had caressed her back. The contrast was stark.

Unhappy about the change, she nonetheless had to acknowledge the usefulness of his suit being cool.

The temperature had become so high by now, even in the forest, that Sansa felt like she might faint from it. Sandor looked perfectly impassive and, unlike her, he wasn’t even sweating.

“You’re not warm at all?” she asked cautiously.

He shook his head in silence.

They pressed on through the greenery. The mountains might have been a little closer by now or maybe it was only Sansa’s vivid imagination, outgrowing the Green Moon’s mutant pansies.

(Just like aliens, mutants didn’t exist.)

“I’d give you  _ my _ suit,” Sandor said apologetically after a long while, “but you could swim in it. You know what, I’ll have one made for you when we are back to wherever the hell we came from.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to return? I would give anything to go back to my family!” she exclaimed passionately. Family was extremely important to her. Maybe they were all crying for her in heaven, thinking her dead or worse.

“You can’t wait to get rid of me?” he asked dryly.

That was unkind. “We are married before the gods, even if it’s only in name,” she reminded him calmly of the difference in customs. “We would have to stay together if we ever go back. There is no divorce in heaven.”

“It  _ is  _ tempting, I’ll give you that,” he muttered in his awful tone. “But guess what, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have no intention to keep you out of any duty you think you owe me,” he muttered. “None whatsoever,” he emphasised.

The conversation was going all wrong, hurting her feelings. Why was he determined to misunderstand her? Maybe it was better if she and Sandor didn’t talk at all.

“You’ll have to agree that it is honourable to respect the customs and the laws of a land you live in,” she affirmed.

“I don't give a rat's arse-”

A beam of light, flying right at her. Beautiful. Fascinating. Flashing blue and white ray flying through the forest. In a blink of an eye, she was thrown to the ground. A male body was on her. Not Sandor’s.  _ Jon’s. _ Two more beams flashed, passing above her head.

She searched for Sandor and saw only a black flurry of movement.

_ Death, this light is death. Fire. Liquid plasma,  _ she thought she remembered.

Did plasma exist?

Sandor was fighting the light.

Unexpectedly, before a new beam nearly hit his eye, he sprouted a  _ helm  _ from his jumpsuit, shaped like a giant, snarling black dog with sharp teeth. His face was completely covered by the monstrous mask now, hiding both his scars and his person.The steel dog’s snout held the jet of plasma off, repelling it. He blocked another beam with a sword made of the same deadly light, which he seemed to have produced out of nowhere. Slicing the air in fast, precise moves, he defended himself, but not only.

He was defending them all.

If it wasn’t for him, Sansa, Jon and Ygritte would be dead. Scorched on the lavishly green and brown forest floor. Charred black stains between giant yellow and orange pansies.

He was very brave.

“Move out of range!” he commanded coldly between two blows. “Run to your left!”

Sansa almost obeyed when she noticed Ygritte lying lifeless to her right. 

In a wolfish leap, Jon outran her, arriving at the nurse’s side. Sansa was on his heels.

Ygritte’s chest was a burning red flower.

Sandor had no choice but to continue resisting the light.

“Sam would say, stop the bleeding,” Jon sounded even more lifeless than the nurse, completely stunned by the turn of events. “But how?” Every semblance of resentfulness was gone from him and Sansa could swear she could see  _ tears  _ in the corners of his eyes. 

“It’s alright, Jon,” Ygritte said quietly behind closed eyelids. “I tried everything by now. Long life would be so boring.”

“No it wouldn’t,” Jon disagreed with emotion. Tearing a piece of his black T-shirt, he almost pressed it into her gaping wound.

“Wait a second!” Sansa’s brain woke up abruptly.  _ Sandor’s suit had stopped the bleeding on his thigh. Wasn’t that was Sam said as well? _

She hurried to her husband on all fours, avoiding the light beams, which were never right above the ground, she noticed.  _ So beautiful. So deadly. _ “Could you cut off the leg of your suit?” she cried out to Sandor.

He did as she asked, chopping the plastic over his  _ healthy _ leg, she noted with satisfaction, repelling another plasma surge before he managed to hand the legging to Sansa.

Sansa crawled diligently back and pressed the precious material to Ygritte’s chest. The legging adjusted to its new position like a living creature, adhering to it tightly. Sansa held the dark bandage for another minute, until the red blossom underneath dark brown and no blood trickled from it.

“Now we carry her,” she affirmed.

Jon took Ygritte under her shoulders and then stood paralysed, lacking direction.

“To the left!” Sansa reminded him, picking up the nurse’s legs.

Ygritte was much heavier than Sansa had imagined. How did Sam and Jon ever succeed with transporting Sandor? She bit her tongue and endured the effort until they were far enough, no longer able to see and hear the sizzling lights.

“Right here,” Jon found his tongue again and motioned with his hand to the sheltered hollow in the ground, behind a line of thick trees. They hauled Ygritte to it and lowered her on moss. Sansa turned to go back to Sandor.

“You’re not helping him by your presence,” Jon said, grasping Ygritte’s hand. “You’re just adding a target for him to defend, exposing himself to be hit even more than if he were alone.”

It was Sansa’s turn to be stunned by the prospect of losing a man she began to hold dear. She felt as if the longest wait of her life had just begun.

How could she stay put as if nothing was wrong? And yet how could she rush back if that was even more dangerous for Sandor? She was positive that she knew  _ nothing _ about fighting, here or in heaven.

“We’ve never seen or heard of an attack like this. Maybe it’s the gods who don’t want mortals here after all” Jon said thoughtfully. “There is another way to the Wall. It’s a bit longer, but it’s said to be safer.”

If their attackers were gods, how could Sandor ultimately withstand them despite having done admirably so far? Sansa prayed they were people, like them.

“We take her to the hospital and return tomorrow morning on our own,” Jon continued. “Hey,” he nudged Ygritte very tenderly. “Can you hear me?”

Her lips were sealed now, but her chest rose with uneven breaths. She gave a most imperceptible nod.

Jon gave Sansa a very peculiar look as if he expected her to do something.

When she didn’t move, he spoke. “Might I have a moment alone with Ygritte, please?”

“Of course,” Sansa said, stung because she hadn’t understood his hing at first. Having to spell out what he wanted must have been so embarrassing and humiliating for Jon! A truly good woman would have sensed instantly what was expected from her. 

But where could she go if not back to Sandor?

“I need to make water,” she invented weakly and wandered off further to her left. Ten steps into the thick forest, she stepped on a pile of leaves and fell through it, hurting her ankle a little.

Alone, she wondered whether to call for help. The bottom of the knee-deep pit in the forest floor felt harder then it ought to be under the thin soles of her flat summer shoes. She crouched to touch it with her hands, finding metal. 

A steel trap door.

When she looked up again, a black shadow was above her, looming tall under the merciless, blinding sun.

“Please dont hurt me,” she begged the gods who must be attacking her now. “I’ll be good. I’ll do anything you say.”

“I thought you only drowned in toilets,” the familiar voice rasped through the dog’s mask and her heart thawed.

“There’s something down here,” she said, relieved. “Come and have a look.”

Sandor stuck his black-clad arm underground, next to her feet. A moment later, he plunged his helmed head towards the buried door and almost instantly dived out.

“I can’t open it without breaking it and I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he announced.

Sansa was disappointed because he didn’t know what to do despite being a man.

“There is an inscription,” he continued. “A password hint, I think. Possibly the sensors will open the door to those who know the second part of the text. I can’t see very well, but it says something about the lonely wolves surviving winter.

Sansa remembered differently the story of the wolves. “No,” she shook her head. “In winter, the lonely wolf dies and the pack survives.”

“There is no winter or wolves around here,” Sandor said with contempt, “only eternal summer, birds and insects. Maybe there are snakes and bats down there and that’d be all.”

“Don’t say that! That’s awful.”

“It’s just the truth.”

_ The lonely wolf dies... _

“....but the pack survives,” she spoke the logical password slowly and stomped on the metal under her feet. The trap door emitted a shrill metal sound, unlocking, perhaps. Cautiously, she pulled it open with her left foot (the one she didn’t hurt before), fearing that the hatch might bite her.

“Impressive,” Sandor said, not sounding impressed at all. “There are stairs underneath.”

Sansa glimpsed them as well.

“We should first take Ygritte to the hospital,” she warned Sandor, putting on hold her own curiosity. Duty and friendship came first. “She’s badly wounded.”

“If she didn’t die before you bandaged her, that piece of my suit will keep her alive and her injury clean for approximately another six hours and thirteen to fifteen minutes,” Sandor rattled the numerical values from a small display that appeared on his sleeve. Let’s have a look.”

“What if your readings are wrong?” Sansa rebelled.

“They aren’t,” Sandor cut her off and began descending quietly into the gloom. Sansa followed, praying to the gods that he was right. She’d never be able to help Jon carry Ygritte all the way to Castle Black. They might both faint in the heat and then what? Sandor had to help. The sooner, the better.

At the end of the spiral staircase, they reached a long, windowless corridor veering to their right, with the familiar ventilation pipes on the bottom. Sansa remembered herself crawling through such installations in her father’s high security prison on the small man-made satellite above the First Planet.

It was where she met Sandor.

A criminal.

No, a member of the Great Guard on a secret mission commanded by the Supreme Governor.

A Dragonknight.

“This way we’d be returning towards the gnats who had attacked us,” he uttered with hatred. “It’s easy to fire plasma at helpless targets in the open. Let’s see how brave they will be when I’m on their backs.”

“You weren’t helpless,” Sansa said fervently.

“I know that,” he replied seriously. “They didn’t. Just like none of you believed me that my suit could sing and dance.”

Some forty steps further, the corridor ended abruptly in an underground bunker equipped with many displays and machines. Sansa could only guess the purpose for less than a half. Blue lights flashed on several screens. “This isn’t good,” she said worryingly.

“Why not?”

“Blue is malfunction,” she repeated one of her first lessons in flying, before they were ever allowed to take a helm of a ship, no matter how small.

“We use red for that on the Third Planet,” Sandor reacted. His gaze studied their surroundings. “You are right,” he conceded. “There isn’t a single red light here and there always is at least one malfunction on any outpost or ship.” He grinned all of a sudden. “Blue is prettier that red, I’ll give you that.”

Sansa couldn’t embrace his careless attitude to the signalling which was new to him. Technology and equipment had to work to perfection in order to preserve life and safety of people. Malfunction shouldn’t be taken lightly.

“Blue also means danger,” she stated, shivering all of a sudden. “It’s so cold in here. This isn’t normal on the Green Moon.”

“This is the standard air-conditioning on the Seven Planets, girl,” Sandor reacted nervously. “What planet are you from that you don’t know what it is?”

There were two empty command chairs, before them, facing a wall filled with screens, with name tags in front of each.  _ Jory and Martyn Cassel.  _ There were also two survival helmets on the floor, for environments without oxygen.

Wasn’t Martyn Cassel supposed to have died in a war before Sansa was born?

_ Where are they? _

Jory…  He worked for her father. Sansa knew him. Was he here? She didn’t realised he had been posted off world. She took a deep breath and was suddenly afraid of choking. Fortunately, whatever had happened to Jory and his father, there was oxygen in this hidden First Planet outpost now, and the temperature was very moderate.

“Did Jory fire plasma beams at  _ me _ ?” she asked, feeling betrayed.

“I don’t think so,” Sandor retorted. “This place looks empty. I think that the local computer had done it because the sensors have detected movement in the vicinity and the men defending it have left. Look around, it’s all rather sophisticated. I’m not entirely familiar with the technology.” He paused and gave her a weird, guilty look. “Do you remember everything now?”

“No,” she shook her head. Or maybe she did if she put her mind to work. “Wait,” she said, “I do!”

It was amazing.

She remembered her parents, her brothers, her only sister. Septa Mordane. Lady, her pet wolf who must miss her now.

The need to marry a prisoner to prove to everyone, including herself, that perhaps she still had  _ honour _ , no matter what Joffrey had said. The fear that Joffrey might have been right and she wrong because he was a man and she only a young, weak woman with lesser abilities.

“As do I, in here,” Sandor rasped. “You truly had no clue about bedding, did you? None at all. They would raise you like that, a little rich girl like you on the First Planet, wouldn’t they? Your folks would. I just find it so hard to believe. It’s provincial and very conservative. They don’t raise girls like this anymore on the Third Planet where I’m from or on the Ninth where I mostly lived in recent years. I mean, all girls wear long dresses and they are taught to stick to no sex before marriage rule, which isn’t that bad when you remember the space plagues being transmitted like that. But they also learn what’s under their clothing and what goes on in bed. They’d know if they’d been with a man alright.”

Sansa head was spinning. The ugly, terrifying bedding with witnesses she had endured and believed to be completed involved less touching then her and Sandor’s precious morning together on the Green Moon. Sandor hadn’t taken her innocence, he had only pretended in order to get away from her father’s prison alive.

_ And unburned. _

She realised they had a very similar conversation before in the spaceship she had piloted. A dragon ship. Spaceships existed. As did other worlds. Her planet had come under attack. Her family had most likely run away to a safe harbour she had failed to reach… Or maybe they... She swallowed.

_ They are alive, they must be, _ she told herself.

The Green Moon was the notorious prison of the Seven Planets, run by people and robots from the First Planet on behalf of the entire population. But exactly how it was managed was kept a secret. Sansa realised that she didn’t appreciate the truth she’d uncovered so far.

“The people here only  _ think  _ they are free!” Sansa exclaimed with great disappointment. “In reality they are being watched and they are confined to this small natural satellite of the First Planet. That’s unfair. Those born here have committed no crime.”

It wasn’t love what kept the citizens of Castle Black in place, but many fortified outposts with guards, like this one.

Sandor shrugged. “What’s fair?” he said. “Very little, I find. It is what it is.”

He pressed his sleeve. His dog-helm shrank, disappearing into his suit

“Ygritte,” Sansa reminded him. “She needs a doctor.”

She made a step to go back.

Sandor stopped her by speaking very calmly, “I could be loyal to you,” he offered quietly. “A good husband.”

“I know,” she reacted.

“Do you?” He made a step closer to her and the magic was back. “Doesn’t it frighten you? The way I am, the way I want you?”

It did. And it did not. And-

“I don’t know,” Sansa murmured the most honest answer she could think of and focused on the burned, dry corner of his lips awaiting that kiss that failed to come again.

“I’m fucking grateful that you got me out,” he whispered. “And whatever I might have said earlier about keeping you by force, as of today I have no intention to hold you in marriage against your will. I’ll tell the truth about you being intact from the Third Planet so that your people don’t get a second chance to burn me for my so-called crime. You’ll be free. Your parents will find you someone else or let you become a septa.”

_ What?  _ Inside Balerion, when she had all but begged him to send her back home with honour, Sandor had stated in clear terms that he might keep her chained to himself no matter what. And now that she would  _ miss  _ him if he wasn’t with her, he had suddenly found it in himself to be generous and let her go. The greatness of his heart she had hoped for beforehand now made her feel unhappy and miserable.

She grasped his hands, needing physical contact, hoping to make him  _ see.  _ “I don’t want anyone else” she said, looking into his eyes, happy that dog mask was gone. “And it’s too late to become a septa, I said the marriage vows once on the Seven Planets. I can’t take the words back.” She coloured before continuing, “Or our kisses, Sandor. My chastity is gone even if my honour remains intact.”

“Fuck me if you wouldn’t make a most pious septa!” he cursed needlessly. “A daring one. Flying on your own to the high security prison in order to pick the least  _ bad _ husband from the death row and prove that Joffrey was a bloody liar. That was very brave. I am honoured, my lady. I’ll do my best to live up to your high ideals of my humble person.”

She couldn’t tell if he was mocking her or if he was dead serious about wanting to be the least bad man for her.

Which was the same as saying he wanted to be the _best_ man for her and that was very flattering. Splendid, in a peculiar way.

“I’m not brave at all,” she tried to explain to him how she was.

“Fuck me if you are not,” Sandor repeated, looking… impressed.

They stood there too long, holding hands, breathing.

“What about Ygritte?” Sansa had to remind him again after a while. “Time is running out.”

“Listen,” he said darkly as if speaking suddenly cost him dearly. “I owe  _ you _ something. An explanation”

“Let’s go,” she pleaded. “You’ll tell me on the way back.”

“I’d rather tell you now.” His voice was so deep that the sound was almost beyond the limits of her hearing. He lowered his gaze as well, focused on himself.

Sansa waited impatiently.

It took him another minute to begin.

“I used to work for Joffrey’s grandfather. His name is Tywin Lannister.”

“The Third Planet's Governor,” Sansa added, not understanding why her husband sounded as if he was about to confess a mortal sin. “It must have been an honour to serve such a great man.”

“Great man. That may well be. But every greatness has its limits. Tywin, you see, he doesn't put his trust in robots. People have more brains, he says, but, alas, they’re physically weaker and often less loyal.”

“Good people are loyal by nature,” Sansa repeated what she had heard at home. “Robots are made to obey blindly and they can only perform limited functions in either service or defence of their masters.”

“Did you father teach you that?” Sandor asked mockingly. “Then perhaps he’s not far from old Tywin with his attitudes. Are they friends? Did they agree together that my punishment should be burning?”

“The magistrates were independent in determining that!” Sansa protested. “Father would never interfere unduly with the process of justice!” her voice weakened. “Not even for me,” she said sadly. “He would only keep his sinful daughter at home rather than follow the custom which dictates that he should put her in the streets.”

“I killed Gregor alright because he’d never accompany me willingly to stand the Supreme Governors’ judgment for stealing Balerion. But I have no clue why your people found his charred remains in place of his cold corpse. Not that I mind it tremendously that he was burned-

“Why not?” Sansa asked instantly, shocked by his admission. What kind of man could approve of their own brother being burned?

“I might still have a face if he didn’t find it amusing to burn half of it,” Sandor tossed back at her.

_ His own brother? _

“Why wasn’t  _ he _ punished?” Sansa wrung her hands, unable to believe him.

“I was six or seven. He was older, but he wasn’t yet of age either. Our father declared it an accident-”

“-and men don’t lie, unlike women or  _ children _ ,” Sansa concluded bitterly.  _ Until they do,  _ she thought, remembering Joffrey. “But if you didn’t burn him, who did?”

Sandor shrugged. “How in seven hells should I know? Maybe it’s the krakens. They seemed eager to annihilate your planet all of the sudden.”

After a long pause, he continued, “But back to Tywin now. He only buys robots to serve at his table. For defence purposes, he improves his soldiers. Makes them stronger and more loyal than provided by mother nature.”

Sansa couldn’t believe he was saying what she thought he was saying. She didn’t know that it could be done. Robots were machines. People could not be as strong or as fast. Horrified, she remembered Sandor breaking walls and defending himself from plasma beans with the speed and flawlessness of a… of a computer.

“Are you a robot?” Sansa asked incredulously. “You can’t be, can you?” 

Was she falling in love with a machine?

“It’s experimental,” Sandor said very quietly. “They call it an upgrade. It’s done by means of some nano-shit, nanotech, shoot me if I know the exact terms. I never bothered to read the agreement I signed. They go on injecting you with crap for over two months. It hurts like seven hells. Some men don’t survive the treatment. Those who do are never quite the same.”

“What do you mean exactly? I saw you fight  _ better  _ than robots. Is that it?”

“That’s the desired effect, why I agreed to go into that,” he murmured, “but there are unintended ones.”

“Like what?”

“Aggression. Extremely enhanced. You can kill anyone when you get angry and everything makes you angry. Even the blue sky,” he sounded very bitter. “You need to strive constantly to keep your upgraded impulses in check. Sooner or later, every soldier who has undergone the treatment loses it. Tywin then sends a group of freshly made ones to put him down.”

Sansa’s spinning head stopped at the only logical conclusion. “Is that what happened to your brother? Did he lose it?”

“Possibly. I’m not sure if he ever underwent the procedure or if he even needed to be upgraded. Gregor was born strong and fast like a robot and aggressive by nature. I was very similar. But, you see, I stayed a little bit shorter and possibly  _ weaker _ . I couldn’t care less if Gregor was upgraded. All I wanted was to make sure that I’d be able to kill him when Tywin decided to put him down or when the Supreme Governor became tired of his strongest but also most unpredictable Dragonknight. He stole Balerion, imagine, the greatest ship of all. That’s rebellion, isn’t it? It couldn’t be allowed, could it?”

Sansa couldn’t care less about Gregor either at that moment. Her moral sense attacked the concept of  _ upgrade.  _ “How dare they perform this horrible upgrade on the Third Planet? Aren’t they afraid of the gods?” 

“If men are able do something, they’ll do it, it’s as simple as that,” he barked cruelly at her. “The only chance the gods have to prevent something they consider ungodly is to make sure in their omnipotence that it’s undoable.” He chuckled darkly. “Otherwise it will be done.”

Sansa wiped a treacherous tear. “Do you think it’s good what they did? Do you approve?”

Sandor lowered his head again. “Tywin’s maesters didn’t lie to me, I’ll give them that,” he confessed. “I knew what the upgrade was and it was my choice to go through with it. All I saw was my future revenge. My life after achieving my goal didn’t matter. But ever since I started feeling the effect of being more murderous than I already was by nature, I hated it. It’s uncanny, Sansa. You become evil, you know it’s the tech in you, you fight it and yet it comes out. You can never calm down, unless-” He gave a her a shrouded look.

“What, Sandor?” she wondered through her tears, shocked and disappointed. Could he harm her? She didn’t think so. But the nano-organisms were inside him, like a disease. They would take over, eventually. He would have to be put down like a sick animal. That was unbearable.

“Sandor!” she heard herself exclaiming, saw herself running into his arms, not caring if she was in danger or not. “Is there a cure?”

He embraced her readily and she thought she felt wetness on top of her head.

Was he crying?

Was everyone crying today.

“Not that I know of,” he said matter-of-factly and she immediately discarded her ridiculous assumption. Men from Seven Planets didn’t cry.

“No one was ever downgraded to normal. Only killed,” he hammered.

“We’ll ask Sam,” Sansa affirmed with passion against his chest.

“Your voice helps,” he rasped, surprising her. “You’re the first person who has that effect on me. I’ve heard plenty of women chirping in Tywin’s and the Supreme Governor’s mansion, but their voices never brought any sort of calm.”

It was an eye opener. Her voice had a medicinal effect. He didn’t care for her person. He didn’t find her womanly, didn’t appreciate her beauty or her courtesies. He was using her to get better.

A stone surged in her throat and she felt like she might drown in her sudden pain. 

“Sansa,” he said almost gently. “One last thought. I don’t think I’d ever agree to be upgraded if I had any plans of having a family. Now-” his voice broke.

“And now you do?” She had just blamed him for being selfish and he was thinking of having a family… with her, who else? How could she have been so egotistically short-sighted? Black-haired babies with blue eyes began crawling in her head. She stopped that chain of thoughts. Her mother had always said that bringing children to the world was much more difficult than it looked to young Sansa on inter-planetary network. It should not be undertaken lightly.

“I told you I want you. For me it’s all-inclusive, like vacations on the Second Planet,” he proclaimed ardently. “If I want you in the evening, I also want you in the morning. I want you to tell me the truth and I owe you the truth. I- I-” he stuttered.

The steel walls echoed his unfinished confession.

“Let’s go back to Castle Black now,” his voice lost the passion and sank into indifference.

She wondered if he was feigning it.

“Think about it,” he rattled at her. “I won’t blame you if you ask for that divorce.”

He had just told her most terrible things about himself and yet his revelations only made her soul soft towards him. She’d be his cure and he’d be her… Her special companion. It was all so intimate. Together they would find a way to the future they would both enjoy.

“Come now,” she said bravely. “Indeed, we ought to go back.”

Forgetting that she was a woman, she led the way out of the bunker.

_ Ygritte. Sam will see you in no time. You’ll be fine. _

He should also check Sandor for the worms in his blood. Didn’t she just learn what they were?

A crucial bit of information was escaping her.

She no longer remembered.

Outside, the nurse seemed unconscious. Jon was seated in moss, holding her in his arms and talking to her in her sleep.

“It’s all  _ my  _ fault, Ygritte. I always believed you could take care of yourself as you so proudly claimed. You see, this  _ Sansa _ ... I thought  _ she  _ was helpless and hopeless,” he laughed sadly. “Guess what, she’s so resourceful that she may survive us all. Come on, wake up, please. We’ll do anything you want when you get better.  _ Anything.  _ I’ll have you know that you’d look perfect in my Mom’s old spacesuit that you wanted to give to Sansa today. And I’d be more than happy if you decide that it isn’t old-fashioned and if you wear it to Craster’s to a date with me one evening. Just stay with me,  _ please _ .”

Sansa was speechless. She would have never guessed that Jon had any tender feelings for Ygritte which were so obvious now.

Apparently she and Sandor weren’t the only couple who occasionally had difficulties communicating. Compulsively, she took her boyfriend’s hand. Did he just tell her something important about himself? She had the uncanny sensation that he did, but she couldn’t remember.

“Stop pretending that I’m your bloody husband,” he reacted with force. “I  _ am  _ forgetting everything again, but I still remember that I never-”

“Why would I pretend?” she interrupted him vividly. Were they married in heaven? If so, she’d already forgotten it and marriage was ephemeral on the Green Moon.“There’s no need to do anything except work for living on the Green Moon. I’m doing what I want, like everyone else.”

She stood on tiptoes and kissed his neck on a whim, that little piece of smooth skin darker than hers which was visible from the suit, just because it looked so inviting, because he was here and they were both alive. The gesture seemed innocent, even for her, most appealing and appropriate.  _ The smallest of sins. _ His skin tasted a little salty and warm. She placed a few more kisses on his beard, soft and dark. “I don’t have to do this either.”

He reacted as much as a stone would, but his gaze looked as helpless as Jon’s when Ygritte fell. She, on the other hand, felt very accomplished and righteous. Maybe she was woman enough.

Maybe love was more splendid than she could ever imagine, woven of respect and honour, and closeness, and heat, all mingled together. Not of pretty faces and sweet words she used to dream of.

Hoping to see the lights of their little flat late in the evening, at the end of another long and exhausting day, she urged Sandor to help her do their duty. “Could you now please help Jon carry Miss Ygritte to the hospital? She’s severely wounded. We have to get her back. And we shouldn’t be late for our shift at Craster’s.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.


	12. Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about terribly slow updates
> 
> RL has been something lately ))

  
  
  
  


**Twelve**

His head was a heavy weight, waiting to be lifted. His heart was a feather, blown off the ground. The wood was sunlit and his battle suit prevented sweating. It was a perfect day.

All he saw was light.

Sansa hurried in front, leading the way back to Castle Black from the woods and hills around it. Every two minutes, she turned back towards Sandor and Jon who carried Ygritte with scattered trepidation, checking if the nurse was still breathing.

Her hair was getting loose from her pony tail from walking fast, and also due to a long brimmed hat she was wearing. Occasionally she rearranged it to look better and suffer less from heat. Then, her pretty eyes never quite reached the ruin of Sandor’s face, but they always studied  _ him.  _ How he moved, what he did, how he sounded if he said anything, how he was. Politely and continuously so.

He was a good fuck, right? But Sansa seemed clueless about that, and women who know what they were up to didn’t give shit for the rest of him. He gave a rat’s arse for people, stupid and cowardly.

_ One lady had been different. Once. Maybe. _

He had been very young. He couldn’t remember. The lost memory was tinged with hurtful sadness: a place he didn’t want to revisit, a place where his heart often returned.

The present was too good to be true. Occasionally he felt that he didn’t deserve it. Or that he was the best and the strongest man of all, scars notwithstanding, so he was obviously entitled to it and why didn’t he have it before?

A pretty woman who only had eyes for him.

He was tempted to deny with contempt what his eyes were telling him. But the dog always sniffed out the truth: exceptionally flattering and beyond any reasonable expectation in the matters of heart.

He and Sansa were a couple.

Well, she wasn’t truly his yet, was she? But it surely looked as if that could be remedied soon and with pleasure. First moment when they were alone. Tonight after work. In the morning when they woke together if she was too tired in the evening.

The issue of being stuck on a gods-forsaken moon was like a tiny, sharp stone in his giant boot. A minor annoyance he'd soon get rid of.

_ But how? _

There was no other place they could go to. The stars were empty and the hope to see them vain. Space travel didn’t exist. His pretty wife was obliged to work as a serving woman in another man’s kitchen and he had to sell his muscle to the same guy, kicking out his drunk clients.

Ygritte moaned quietly.

“Just a little longer,” Jon told her sheepishly, sounding like a fool.

The boy was in love of course and love was for morons. Sandor snorted with contempt. Jon was from a wealthy family, it was written all over his nose. In his speech, his manners. The nurse, on the other hand, well, Sandor supposed she was born in a pigsty and then went to school. She might use some money. She wouldn’t be a poor company in bed in return, would she? It was up to the boy to see about that.

If she survived being plasma-shot.

“I’m not dying just yet,” Ygritte murmured, her romantic assertion far from certainty.

“Shut in seven hells up!” Sandor commanded her heartlessly.

For gods’ sake, the woman was a nurse! Wasn’t she trained to know when talking was bad for her health?

“Sandor!” Sansa exclaimed. “Be kind to her!” she lectured him honestly. “She’s badly wounded. She needs encouragement.”

“Kindness will do shit for her right now,” he retorted sharply, carrying the bloody nurse towards her hospital as fast as his long legs carried him. Jon was half running to keep up the pace. Sansa was like a lithe forest animal, walking much faster than he would expect from a lady with her manners.

“She should shut up and save her energy to increase her chances for survival and full recovery,” he rasped the correct medical argument towards Sansa in a flat tone.

Sansa gaped slightly, biting her lip. “I didn’t consider your rude remark from that angle,” she conceded he might have a point. “There was still no need to humiliate her with your advice,” she concluded calmly.

He snorted again and stopped talking. They were in a hurry, weren’t they? Why waste time on stupid conversations?

_ Kindness. Right. Niceties. _

He had few. Occasionally he had to pretend, for his work, to fit in the good society he despised.  _ Why?  _ He had no clue why he harboured that attitude or what was the fancy society he had in mind.  _ What was his old work? _

He only knew for certain that it involved killing.

Why did Sansa stick to her alien manners on the Green Moon? Why couldn’t she sing instead of asking questions and correcting his behaviour? It would make him feel so much better.

She should be angry with him now. He would be, if someone treated him like he just did with her. And she was, he could tell. She held his head higher and tried to look through him.

But when she thought  _ he  _ wasn’t looking, she still studied him, his manners, his person, undeterred by his rudeness.

He looked at her all the time despite feigning indifference towards her now that they had company.

It was still too good to be true.

He and Sansa were an item.

xxxxxxx

xxxxxxx

 

The Castle Black hospital looked greener than before, the world quieter, prettier. He was almost home.

Sam the fatty called in two more maesters, no,  _ doctors,  _ to help him fix Ygritte.

Sandor headed to the bathroom to get rid of his suit. It offered protection from men and nature, but he could never hold his woman as he wanted.

He felt damn hot in local black T-shirt and shorts, but also unburdened and free, as if he had just peeled off his old life without Sansa.

“What have you two seen out there in the wilderness?” Jon was pretending to wash his hands in the lavatory, just outside the primitive cubicle for pissing that could only exist on the Green Moon, with water flushing the toilets instead of purifying cleaning gas.

Annoyed by a hindrance on his path, Sandor wanted to punch the boy, move him aside and storm out through the freshly green door. But before letting his temper flare at will, he noticed how exhausted and yet determined Jon looked. “Where have the two of you been for so long?” he wondered honestly.

“Nowhere,” Sandor rasped with animosity, cutting the conversation short.

Or so he thought.

“You don’t remember, do you? Admit it!” Nonplussed by Sandor’s attitude, Jon wouldn’t shut up. “You’ve got no clue! This means precisely that you’ve uncovered something important. Otherwise you’d  _ know _ where you’ve been. We have to go back right now. We must try to rediscover and then learn to remember exactly what everyone forgets,” the boy paused knowingly. “If we mean to leave.”

Sandor struck back: “Why in seven hells do you want to return to your fool’s errand now, boy? You love your watcher’s job and the girl. Don’t tell me that you don’t. She didn’t kill herself yet.”

“It’s getting  _ colder _ . Haven’t you heard?” the boy sounded both offended and concerned, staring at Sandor as if he was an idiot if he didn’t see clearly why everyone in their right mind should get in seven hells out of the Green Moon.

As soon as possible.

Looking truly lost, Jon removed a jet of black hair from his equally black eyes and stared at Sandor pleadingly. “Please,” he said. “Help me. I can’t do this on my own. I lack the knowledge and my heart is a wreck.”

“What do  _ you  _ remember, Jon?” Sandor rasped quietly. “Where was I when you last saw me, before Ygritte fell? Where did Sansa go to find me?”

Moments after, he was on his way back to the woods, alone with the boy, trying to find again what he must have forgotten, hoping to be back in time for work, hoping Sansa would forgive him. He could explain, could he? If he found words. He often had none. He’d have to find some. Maybe he could write them down, like the bloody drawings of relatives people wanted to remember after landing on the bloody moon.

He’d think about it later.

He wasn’t wearing his jumpsuit on purpose, deciding to look like a native, in case that the things no one could remember existed, such as spaceships and plasma fire, and were governed from afar by the race of the so-called newcomers to which he and Sansa belonged, triggered by the presence of the newcomer technology.

Such as high tech state of the art battle space suits, abandoned in the green toilet of the green hospital on the Green Moon.

_ Will she find it? What will she think? _

His heart was in his heels from the thought.

They have just met and yet he had never felt more guilty for clearly doing the wrong thing, though perhaps for the right reasons. The boy had a point. The men should go and see what was lurking on the Green Moon. Sansa was far safer with the fatty, waiting for Ygritte’s surgery to end, then risking to trigger more plasma fire from the unknown watchers of the Green Moon, by being a newcomer like himself.

“We’ve got to go around the place where we encountered enemy fire,” he warned Jon, unable to say “plasma” out loud, because one part of his conscious mind dictated that he was being a lunatic, just like the boy, because plasma weapons didn’t exist. “I don’t think it’ll go off now,” he said what he could, “but I can’t be sure.”

Jon nodded seriously, leading the way. “No worries,” he said, “I know these woods like the back of my hand. You’ll return in time for your work and me when she wakes up,” he concluded politely, extremely calm and focused now that he had gotten his wish.

A bit like Sansa.

He had succeeded in turning Sandor into a lunatic like himself, looking for things which didn’t exist, on the Green Moon.

Passing the clearing where Ygritte fell from afar, Sandor said with authority, “Wait here,”

“Why-”

“I’m checking my assumptions,” he clarified, returning to the place where he remembered fighting with precision against superior technology.

Nothing happened.

But a large grey object lurked further ahead, in the lush green bushes, out of place and time, not supposed to exist.

“Jon!” he called quietly. “Come over here!” He waited for the boy and beckoned him to follow in silence.

Jon’s eyes went wide when they approached the object. “My father taught me that only dragonships existed,” he exhaled, “but this-”

“-is wolf design which should exist even less than the dragon one,” Sandor parroted from the pit of his lost memories which resurfaced only when faced with manifestly unreal things.

Such as a non-existing landed spaceship.

His head hurt like hell. The hatch, was it a door? It was closed.

“Can’t you open it?” Jon was impatient again, irritating Sandor in return.

“I was trained to, I think,” Sandor replied honestly. “But my know-how has been thoroughly erased by landing here. As if I never had it.”

He pulled the hatch with all his might. Maybe he could punch it to and make a hole like in the walls of his and Sansa’s apartment. He tried that as well, but the hull metal was too hard.

Suddenly, the hatch opened of its own accord. Sandor jumped aside. Jon crouched in order to avoid being hit in the hand and remained under it.

A pretty woman stood in the opening, holding a plasma gun pointed straight at Sandor.

Instantly, he felt the air warming up more than it should behind his back, even on the hyper hot Green Moon. The woman’s presence was about to trigger the same locally installed ambush of plasma fire that had almost killed Ygritte, confirming his theory that newcomers took care that only those… banished… what else… were allowed to land on the Green Moon… carrying with them nothing but the clothing that the Green Moon inhabitants considered old-fashioned and conservative on their backs. It was a miracle that Sandor had kept his suit.

“Stop it woman!” he shouted. “Close the bloody door if you want to live. Then we can talk.”

Instead of listening to him, she muttered angrily. “If you were a noble man you would have  _ burned _ instead of accepting my daughter’s too generous offer to marry you.”

_ Daughter? _

She fired with thankfully  _ shaky  _ hands.

He leapt aside and forward, avoiding her fire, sweeping her away from the plasma bursts she would soon trigger, toppling her onto the space ship’s floor.

She hit her head in a console in the process and remained unconscious. Sandor carried her to the pilot seat and used the restraints for flying in space storms to tie her up.

It wouldn’t do if she woke surreptitiously and used her gun again.

As he laboured, all his memories came back, his shitty childhood, his first love, him finally killing Gregor, being condemned, being saved from burning by Sansa. This woman who had tried to see the better in their situation, make her husband see reason. Now clearly angry with him as well. Sansa’s mother.

Jon crept in, avoiding the first plasma burst that managed to hit the inside of the ship, damaging the communications array. “Do you know how to fly it?

“Probably,” Sandor muttered, pressed a familiar, but differently looking button on the main display and prayed inwardly.

The cruel gods or sheer chance provided that he was lucky, closing the bloody door.

They were safe unless the fire on the outside was calibrated to burn through dragonsteel… But wait, this ship couldn’t be made of that precious ore, could it? This was wolf design. Did they have wolfsteel on the First Planet/

In the Seven Kingdoms, it was strictly forbidden by law to make animal-shaped ships other than the mighty dragons, the keepers of the peace in the realm. Honourable Governor Stark had apparently gone against it. Perhaps he should be burned for his crime.

“I could try flying it,” Sandor explained further, “the thing is, as soon as we leave the ship to go to Castle Black-”

“-we’ll both forget everything,” Jon added darkly.

“Yes.”

“We could leave now, but-”

“No,” Jon said.

“No,” Sandor agreed wholeheartedly. He wasn’t going anywhere without Sansa, and if he now took off in an unknown vessel, he could end up in seven hells for all he knew.

“We’ll write everything down,” Jon suggested.

In vain.

Papers and pens were primitive gadgets. There were none on the ship, and Sandor didn’t dare use data pads. If taken out, they would surely trigger plasma fire, and Sandor suspected they would at least malfunction or even vanish, somehow.

Jon had an idea, “We’ll get  _ her _ out, take her with us,” he said, pointing at Sansa’s mother. “We’ll remember the place from which we started carrying her. We’ll know she’s a newcomer.”

“Do you still remember where you found Sansa and me?” Sandor had to know.

Jon nodded, “Yes, but when I went back I couldn’t find anything. Was all I did the whole day yesterday before going to Craster’s in the evening. I nearly died from sun stroke.”

“Bloody Balerion,” Sandor cursed. “He’ll be gone by now.”

“Who’s that?”

“The dragonship we arrived in. They are equipped with a return home mechanism. If no one operated it for a day on the Green Moon, it must have drifted off.”

“Others take me!” Jon cursed.

It was a common curse on the Green Moon that Sandor didn’t quite understand. Something related to the demons that could be waking to life if the temperature on the Green Moon decreased any further.

After a moment, Jon wondered timidly, “What about this ship? Is it any good?”

“How should I know? It’s illegal technology on the Seven Planets. I don’t know how much tech Governor Stark stole from the dragon design and used for his own,” he looked around with curiosity. “Or how much he invented. I’m a pilot, not an engineer.”

“Then you can fly it,” Jon said with admiration.

“Probably,” Sandor repeated with irritation. “Are you deaf? I already told you so.”

The temptation to kill the boy and Sansa’s mother in cold blood crept into his head uninvited, causing cold sweat. He hated it, but it was there. The bloody gene treatment done by Tywin’s maesters, the one he requested in order to kill Gregor.

“Who are you?” Sansa’s mother was predictably awake by now so it was good she was tied up. Her question was obviously not directed at Sandor.

She was acquainted with her criminal goodson against her will in the matter.

“I’m Jon,” the boy answered with courtesy.

“And your family name?” the lady continued asking.

“Your daughter is alone on the Green Moon,” Sandor interrupted the niceties, not having time or patience for them. “I don’t know about you, boy, but I’m going back to my wife.”

“You’re mad if you think I’ll go out with you and forget my name,” Sansa’s mother said. “I have committed no crime. I am not condemned to live my life here. My daughter shouldn’t be convicted to it either. Sansa is innocent. I’m here to take her back home. I’ll find her from here,” she typed a code in the communications array, thoroughly burned out by liquid plasma. “How is this possible?” she exclaimed. “The protective shield,” she answered her own question with discontent. “Nothing goes in or out. Only the prisoners,” she concluded calmly. Her pretty forehead frowned as she pondered her options in silence.

“If it’s true that you’re here to get your daughter,” Sandor rasped cruelly, “she’s out there. And the only way of getting to her is by first forgetting your name. We can’t fly a ship into a city. It can’t be done safely. Or did they forget to teach that basic lesson to ladies of high birth on the First Planet?”

The lady gave him a look of hatred, as if she would eat him for breakfast.

“I’ll take you to her,” he vowed on a whim. “She’s been crying for her family since she arrived,” he added. “I’d do anything to make her happy, lady,” he confessed.

It was the truth.

“I’m Catelyn,” the lady introduced herself politely to _him_ , her unwanted goodson. Then, she bit her lip like Sansa when she didn’t quite accept something. To Sandor’s surprise, she then freed herself from the pilot seat restraints in two elegant movements, using functions on the high tech wolfchair that Sandor didn’t know existed. With equal finesse, she pressed the hatch opening button, and walked bravely through the open door.

To the Green Moon.

Sandor gaped.

“Come,” Jon said, “we can’t let her wander off like that. One of my colleagues from the watch could find her. Her drawings could be brought to the attention of the High Commissioner. If she can draw as well as Sansa, Baelish could lock us both up for lunatics. He tried several times with my late father.”

Sandor nodded brusquely and followed suit, stifling a needless snarl. He didn’t like to be lectured. But ranting at the boy would serve no purpose. Silence was better and would get them much faster back to the city.

The ship soon vanished behind them all. Sandor began to wonder if the hells were perhaps nine like the planets in the realm or only seven as he was always told by the septons. He was being a moron now, and he would suffer for it. He would  _ lose  _ Sansa by taking her mother back to her. He ought to have abandoned the lady in her wolf ship and stolen Sansa away.

_ But to take her where? _

But how would Sansa feel if he did something like that and she found out?

And what if he was sorry for kidnapping her in the coming days, and unable to repair his transgression, always seeing the trace of her anger looming behind her condescending, too well educated womanly eyes?

Birds sang merrily in the high trees around them.

Spaceships didn’t exist.

It was he and Jon, two loonies who haven’t found anything. Except the woman. Another bloody newcomer. She had to go to the hospital, get her notebook, come to terms with the fact that there were no more heavens.

Only the Green Moon.

The place where he arrived married to the most beautiful woman in the world, whose voice brought him peace.

“Who are you?” the newcomer lady asked Sandor coldly, striving to maintain the composure before his facial deformity.

“And you?” To Sandor’s surprise, she asked the same from Jon with inexplicable and unfriendly suspicion.

Maybe scares weren’t her problem. Perhaps she hated T-shirts and shorts. Sandor was told that none was fashionable in heavens. He had forgotten what textile  _ was  _ popular, perhaps because he gave a rat’s arse for it.

Functionality was the way.

The lady’s dress was impeccably long, meticulously crafted from smoothed dark red and blue velvet, and she was certainly sweating under a heavy cloak of grey. She nonetheless looked beautiful and similar to Sansa. It might be that all women in heavens were like that.

“I’m Jon, he’s Sandor,” the boy replied, saving Sandor from the necessity to keep conversation, for which he was grateful. “This is the Green Moon. You’ll be soon given the opportunity to draw your loved ones from heavens so that you don’t forget them completely.”

“I see,” the lady replied sternly. “The Green Moon. What crime have I committed? Am I to be imprisoned?”

“That part is between you and gods. The people born here like myself do not know,” Jon answered sceptically. “You’ll be imprisoned only if you commit a crime here. For the rest, where it concerns us, you’ll just have to earn your living like everyone else.”

Perhaps there was hope for the boy. Unlike Sansa, he didn’t seem to believe wholeheartedly in gods who were ugly and cruel if they existed. They let people burn. Even little children.

The heat was less and the sky prominently black, Sandor realised belatedly. “We’re late,” he stated. Time had flown wherever they had been. He couldn’t remember shit about where that was and his big head now felt large as a pumpkin, hurting tremendously.

“I’m late for work,” he repeated. What would he say to Sansa?

Jon shrugged, “Worst case, Craster will fire you. He’s used to losing employees because of low pay and long working hours. There are always vacancies at his place. There are other places where you get the same pay for less bouncing work. You just have to live here a little longer to find out which bar’s good for you. Mole’s Town. Stony Shore. You’ll tell me the new names in a month. I’m not much of a bar type.” Suddenly, he looked as if he would cry.

“Your girl is,” Sandor guessed, remembering Ygritte, wounded by a weapon that shouldn’t exist yet it did, drifting between life and death.

“I’ll take her to all of them if she wakes,” Jon whispered fervently.

Sandor wanted to take Sansa everywhere as well. And most of all to her home, away from the Green Moon, for that seemed to be her strongest wish.

“They won’t allow us into the hospital after midnight,” Jon said darkly. “I’ll have to go to the Watch tower and return at dawn. Think you could find a place for the lady in your apartment and bring her to the hospital in the morning? Weren’t there still empty pages in your notebook? Sansa’s was quite full,” he blushed. “I’m sorry that I opened it by chance. I’m sorry that I even thought of checking your private things.”

“There are some empty leaves in mine, right,” Sandor rasped quietly. First he had to retrieve his pen from dustbin though. He thought that Sansa still had hers.

“I would very much appreciate if I could take some notes as soon as possible,” the lady said quietly, only the slightest trace of impatience noticeable in her voice.

At the gates of Castle Black, Jon climbed up, into a dark, rickety tower, and Sandor headed home with his heart full of hope. The lady followed behind like his shadow, never saying another word.

He got them a little lost, not knowing the city well. When he finally found his house and reached the last floor, it was well past midnight, almost one o’clock in the morning, if not more, and the door to his apartment was locked.

_ Good girl,  _ he thought, knocking hard.

There was no answer.

_ “ _ It’s me,” he rasped.

“Go away,” Sansa commanded him coldly behind a closed door, sounding sullen like Jon in his worst moods when he wanted to force other people to find dragons for him or maybe fabricate the beasts from thin air.

“I brought a lady you might know,” he tried to say something. Was it a lie? The newcomer resembled Sansa strongly, in looks, if not in character. Sansa… Sansa was generous, open-minded, and ashamed of herself. This woman was stern and self-assured, in control of her emotions.

Whatever they were.

“I don’t believe you! Did you find another girlfriend? Ygritte was  _ sure _ you and Jon went drinking when she woke. She  _ cried and  _ said that’s what men do. I had to offer her consolation and then work all by myself! And now you’re bringing home another woman!”

“Look, I don’t know her, she’s a newcomer!” Sandor snarled. “And Ygritte should know that her lover boy isn’t drinking. He isn’t a bar type from what he told me.”

“Are  _ you _ a bar type?” Sansa asked angrily.

“I might be,” he replied instinctively. Drinking was very appealing, but he didn’t turn to it yet, not since his arrival to the Green Moon, afraid of the effect it might have on the instincts he hated. The killing urge in the back of his head. The need to crush things into pieces.

“Open up!” he demanded angrily, losing all hope. Why did he ever think that he had a home? He’d never have one! It was all an illusion.

“Why are you bringing  _ home _ a newcomer lady, like me,” Sansa now sounded weak, as if she was crying or about to shed tears for something that wrenched her soul. “Is it because I have sunk so low in your opinion and forsaken my propriety? Is that the reason you found a lady who has just arrived and who is not at all too forward, like I have become, or vulgar like some women on the Green Moon?”

“Sansa please!” his head hurt, hurt, hurt. The sound of her voice still calmed him, but the meaning of her words was poison. She was in the wrong, but he didn’t know what to say to make her see it.

He had to do something.

But what?

His head pounded and he didn’t think that the tempting idea of breaking the door was a good one.

“Sansa?” the newcomer woman asked melodiously. “Your name is so familiar. And very beautiful.”

He should have let the bloody boy take her to the Watch tower and run home on his own. It would be easier to explain.

“Young lady,” the woman knocked gently on  _ his _ door, “I can assure you that I still recall being married to a good man whom I love for many years. And even if I did not attach any value to my marriage, which I do, let me reiterate it to you, I am no longer of an impatient young age where I would myself seek the charming company of this angry young man with scars.”

The word young stung. The newcomer lady might have had ten years on him, maybe more, maybe less. Her beauty was still untouched by age. On the contrary, he looked and, more importantly, he had always felt much older than his years. Biologically, he and this woman could be a couple if there had been any interest on any side.

Well there wasn’t.

If only Sansa could see it.

“Sansa,” he managed to rasp with extreme calm he didn’t feel. “She’s a newcomer who has arrived late at night and needs a notebook. This is the law here.” Sansa was very respectful of all laws, wasn’t she? “I have a few empty leaves in mine.”

Silence was his answer and he ended up standing with an unknown, elegant lady for almost an hour on the stairs.

When he considered breaking into Ygritte’s apartment just to lay down and perhaps lose his devastating headache after some sleep, Sansa opened the door.

For some reason, she was wrapped in a white sheet from the bed  _ he  _ had slept in the night before, as if it were a newcomer cloak. The thin white fabric was firmly closed around her, covering her body from neck to toe.

Ignoring him completely, she strode to the other woman and embraced her.

“Mother,” she said with emotion. “You must be weary from your journey to the Green Moon. I… I have made drawings of all our family that is left behind in heaven. Please believe me. Please forgive me for not recognising you immediately.”

The newcomer lady was at first stiff and then relaxed in Sansa’s arms. Slowly, she touched her daughter’s hair, looked into her eyes and then smiled, not remembering, but more like... acknowledging the truth.

“I have almost forgotten all about you by now,” she replied with love, “and I can barely remember the others.”

“Please come in, Mother,” Sansa urged her.

The two ladies ended up seated on the couch before the black box that occasionally served as a primitive form of the interactive interplanetary network, examining Sansa’s notebook and chatting. The lady, Catelyn, as Sansa’s drawing of her said, added a few sketches on her own. Some of the wolf-like animals.

Sandor remained at the open entrance, feeling like an alien.

After a few hours, he began descending the stairs. He’d find a place to sleep in the streets of Castle Black like a stray dog. Despite the temperature decreasing, it was still hot enough to sleep outside. Maybe someone would take him in for the night. Maybe he could find strongwine, get himself drunk as seven hells.

“Sandor, where are you going?” Sansa called from the top of the stairs when he was nearly out of the house.

So she still remembered him.

“Out,” he rasped, exiting.

He didn’t make thirty steps through the steeply descending street when she was on his heels, swift like when she had wandered with him, Jon and Ygritte through the forest.

She grabbed his hand, made him turn back, then took her hand away and blushed, ashamed with her forwardness.

“Thank you,” she breathed out. “Why didn’t you tell me immediately that you found Mother?”

“I f-forgot who she was,” he stuttered, his brains getting from enraged and sullen to habitual calm and not necessarily friendly mood. Logically, he must have known at one moment who Catelyn was or he wouldn’t have brought her here. Even he was clever enough not to bring another pretty woman to the woman he wanted. It wouldn’t sit well, would it? He and Jon must have uncovered something important and forgotten all about it, just like he had another blank in his memories, from him and Sansa disappearing together into the wood for a while. The lapse that made him feel as if he and Sansa came close to becoming a couple during the time he didn’t remember.

She had been very jealous.

_ So it must be true. _

The night was beautiful once more and their home so close.

In the morning, they would have to revisit the place where they found Sansa’s mother and where Ygritte fell, in order to discover a way out of the Green Moon.

“Gods! I’m so sorry, Sandor. I was alone and I listened to Ygritte who’s ill and miserable, and then I saw all those loud customers drinking at Craster’s and staring at the dancers, and I began drawing my own conclusions about your absence. In… In line with local customs. I- I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he replied, “this place is crazy.”

“Please come home,” she said and led him back up by the hand.

His daydream of happiness returned with stunning force, his heart opened up. The morning of his life dawned in the night of Castle Black.

In their apartment, Catelyn slept tightly on the couch, hugging Sansa’s notebook.

Sandor trod instinctively towards the bedroom, more with the intention to sleep than do anything else. His body and his heart were a wreck and he wanted to calm down. Maybe Sansa would hug him now that the notebook was taken. The notion was extremely appealing. Maybe she would sing him to sleep.

Sansa halted. “My mother is in here,” she whispered, “it’s too close. I can’t. I just… my guts twist from having anyone witnessing us… us… us… us being together in marriage bed,” she finally concluded.

His guts turned differently, and sleep disappeared from his mind.

“There is a possibility,” he said.

She might hate him for it.

It was worth a try.

He went to Ygritte’s door and leaned his shoulder against it. He could break it down alright. Before he did, he tried the handle. The nurse had left it unlocked in her enthusiasm to abandon Castle Black. The key was still in on the inside.

He turned towards Sansa. “She’s in a hospital and her boy sleeps with his fellow guards. I don’t think she’d mind.”

Sansa stood undecided behind him, but only for a moment. Then, she found the keys to their apartment, and, to Sandor’s surprise, locked her mother in, blushing as she did it.

“I think… it’s better if she doesn’t wander off on her own before she learns more about local customs.” She wrung her pretty hands. “It feels cruel and unjust, Sandor, to treat my mother so, but I see no better way.”

“We’ll wake up early,” he vowed and stared at the most beautiful woman he had ever met, crossing Ygritte’s doorstep and smiling at him.

When he locked the door of the apartment they were borrowing for the night, Sansa finally dropped the sheet that served as her new cloak of white.

“Please don’t be angry,” she said with trepidation. “I was just trying on the dancers’ attire to see how it fits me before you arrived. I had to do something to stop  _ worrying  _ about you. But I didn’t go like this to work. I could never! I watched them practice at Craster’s before performing tonight and I borrowed a spare outfit from one of them.”

Underneath, she wore only black. The T-shirt was tight and very short, hugging her full breasts, with miniature sleeves squeezing her perfect shoulders. Her belly was uncovered, flat and smooth. The shorts covered her cunt, but not her legs. Even tighter than the top, they held her wonderfully rounded ass in a firm grip.

His hands closed instinctively around her waist, soft and malleable.

And when he finally took her in his arms, he felt as if a sudden burst of finest, hottest plasma shattered his aged heart.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading


	13. Thirteen

**Thirteen**

Nothing mattered, only Sandor’s arms.

And he most of all.

She launched her worthless hands at him and when they crash-landed on his shoulders, she leaned her head on his chest.

His heart raced, pounded, a spaceship about to take flight. 

He was finally back. Her yearning for him should have been quenched and soothed, and not made more acute by his return.

Yet she still longed for him. Despite that she was already drowning willingly in the pleasure of resting in his arms, the need for more closeness in her grew by the minute.

There was no shame on her side, no elaborated thoughts of what ought to be done. He had challenged the world in his great male wisdom and found her mother, which should have been impossible on the Green Moon.

And then he returned to  _ her,  _ worthless as she might be. When she persisted in being unjust towards him, refusing to hear him out, he had reasoned and almost pleaded with her to let him into their appartment, instead of punishing her insolence.

He could have broken the apartment door or a wall, imposing his will.

By the gods, he was her husband, she should have deferred to him instantly! Even if he had seemed unfair by leaving her alone the whole day on this moon without a word. Perhaps she didn't deserve to know where he was headed, but couldn't he at least have mentioned that he would be departing?

That he'd be back later?

Men possessed superior intelligence and couldn’t be wrong unless women tempted them, out of their natural weakness.

Right?

It wasn’t what people believed on the Green Moon.

Well, the locals did not seem to hold any immutable principle in high esteem. Change was constant. Opinions varied. Jobs, interests and love… waned... and were replaced by others in a matter of days, hours even. Everyone did as it pleased them, not deferring to each other.

Only those who broke the law were punished.

No one could kill, steal, assault or injure people, or force another person into marriage bed against their will.

Yet the drunks at Craster's had assumed loudly what Sansa wanted done to her in bed, while she waited on their tables alone, without Sandor's shadow eclipsing the bar lights.

The tipsy, unfounded assumptions about her intimate dreams stung, making her feel sick in her guts and in her head. She wanted to run away, but she could not: trapped and endangered, she had to work for a living.

When a man lightly slapped her behind, seeing her off with his hand, after she had dutifully served his dinner, she immediately complained to the bouncer at the door, following proper procedures. But Sandor’s colleague had merely shrugged and said that the customer had been joking. What was Sansa’s problem? That man hadn't even try to kiss her. He was allowed to make ouvertures. Or how would he ever learn the woman’s answer?

She should relax, do her job and stop overreacting. And yes, she should be happy for having a fine ass.

Her behind had always been too large for her liking. Was it her little sister who had a perfect, muscled one?

She couldn’t remember.

She had remained tense and scared throughout her lonely shift at work, her smile and friendliness for the customers gone. At closing, Craster had come to warn her in person that she should act cheerfully the next evening or she could look for another job. At one of Mr Baelish’s establishments, perhaps? She was good looking.

Or she could stop fussing. It was her choice, really, to wrinkle her nose or get on with her life. She was free to decide, and Craster didn’t care either way.

Sansa had been offended. Craster’s suggestions sounded like insults, despite that they surely weren’t so intended. Sex work was just another profession on the Green Moon.

 

Well, she wasn't beginning to develop a predilection for a line of work that still felt frightening at best to her as a newcomer. And she didn’t care for Craster, despite that it felt rude not to.

But her employer’s blunt, unpolished statements had set her mind to work, waking up the courage in her to think of a profession she would consider meaningful, and not only necessary.

She might want to dance, she concluded, but not for the public, or maybe for different,  _ courteous _ and well-educated audience, if she could truly choose her occupation, something she still found very hard to believe, despite the proclaimed freedom on the Green Moon.

None of the actual jobs on offer had been what she wanted.

Where was freedom then?

It wasn’t an immutable principle, but at least it was an ideal.

Pursuing freedom, Sansa visited the dancers straight after her unpleasant exchange with Craster, and ended up borrowing the spare attire from one of them, to try it later on, in the privacy and warmth of her and Sandor’s appartement, while she waited for him.

She never imagined he’d be back while she was still wearing it and much less with her mother.

The dancers performed almost nude from Sansa’s newcomer viewpoint, but that evening at Craster’s their outfits had been different, without glitter and glamour: simple black tops and shorts. Instead of obscenely waving their bodies towards the customers, they were absorbed in their own movements, making complex figures altogether as a group: beautiful and abstract. A low screen separated them from the viewers, and for all the lewd, insolent comments, no one was able to touch them.

“Crappy art dance!” A drunk woman had screamed. Some men left the room in protest. But others stayed and watched with fascination, in respectful silence, clapping profusely when the show ended, and whistling with different admiration than the one offered to Sansa’s behind by the customer who wasn’t content to only eat his dinner.

Afterwards, the dancers were all sweaty and exhausted and yet they appeared to be very cheerful and motivated to continue with their profession, chatting with each other in the dressing room, exchanging ideas for new figures in both movement and words.

Artistic dance began to seemed noble and not only beautiful to Sansa.

If certain level of discomfort was unavoidable in order to make a living, then perhaps she should dance and learn to ignore her shame for being underdressed in public, as long as she could avoid undesired touch, innocuous as it might be considered by the law enforcement and the bouncing population on the Green Moon.

Now, she was trembling with expectation in Sandor’s arms, like a cowardly leaf launching itself freely to hover in the summer breeze.

He had been holding her close for a long, long time and never said a word, never made a move.

Never touched her behind.

And maybe because he didn’t, she wondered how it would make her feel if he took that liberty tonight, after the devastating evening at work she’d endured.

How would it be, her marriage bed,  _ their _ marriage bed?

He surely didn't seem very intent of bringing them there despite that she had clearly mentioned it once, from sheer happiness of their coming back together that gave her the liberty to speak her mind.

But now she started to feel as if she might die from shame if she had to drop another discreet hint at what she wanted.

Sandor.

The man who could break walls and yet quieted from her song. Who made her heart beat faster. She longed to be his, not knowing how.

Her husband.

Who was finally showing sign of obliging her fantasies. His silent embrace became a tad less tight. His dry lips found her neck: hot sandpaper on soft skin, driving her insane, making her see all those spaceships that didn’t or shouldn’t exist, the mockingbirds, the krakens, the wolves and the mighty dragons.

She first arched and then craned against him, losing herself in pure pleasure.

His hands journeyed over her back, reaching under her tiny top. His T-shirt was accidentally lifted in the process; soft hair and warm skin touching hers.The improper, too short, too  _ tight _ dancing outfit from the Green Moon became the best attire she had ever worn. Mindlessly, she imagined she wasn’t dressed at all. 

From that, the small of her back felt spineless, melting.

Nice.

“Did you miss me?” she whispered, needing to know that he had given  _ her _ some thought while he was gone, unable to accept Ygritte’s strange theory that men didn’t think, and much less about women. Surely all human beings possessed the gods’ gift of reason.

Ygritte had shared her views freely with Sansa when they established beyond doubt that both Jon and Sandor were missing. According to her, men only cared about getting into a woman’s pants. Once, twice, maybe a few times more, if a girl was lucky, and then they would find another one - the sooner the better.

“Ugly, hairy and stinky bugs, that’s what they are, Sansa, never forget, not handsome butterflies hopping from one flower to another,”  Ygritte had lectured Sansa and laughed bitterly, suffering pain from her wound, awaiting life-saving surgery in Castle Black hospital.

Without Jon.

Except that, if Sansa considered it truly, Jon didn’t fit Ygritte’s description. He wasn’t ugly or smelly and his skin had seemed relatively smooth. Maybe he wasn’t a man, but a disguised alien who ought to be quarantined before spreading a dangerous space plague. Or maybe Ygritte loved him because he was different than the rest. Or because he left her before showing any serious intent to get into her pants at all.

On the contrary, Sandor’s scent was quite strong in the naturally warm climate of the Green Moon. Perhaps it could be considered as a poor smell if one didn’t appreciate it, Sansa mused, inhaling it with pleasure. His scars were very ugly and he  _ was _ hairy, she was discovering. None of those undeniable facts changed how she felt in his arms.

aSafe, warm, cared for.

Loved.

Even if he had never spoken about it as he perhaps should. Wasn’t it like that between the heroes and heroines of the long novels on the interplanetary network? Didn’t they confess their love and sigh for each other over cups of synthetic tea drifting in the air between them, in an atmosphere with low gravity.

None of it existed, of course. There were no planets beyond the Green Moon so why should there be a network to unite them?

Sandor’s hands were now decidedly past her trousers, in her underwear, on the bare skin of her behind, and perhaps she should make him stop now, husband or not, in case that this was terribly sinful and improper despite feeling right.

But then a huge head banged against her shoulder, nodding in affirmative, beard tickling her bone under her T-shirt’s collar. 

He had missed her.

And his body still felt right against hers. Despite the sticky heat of the Green Moon, she adored the sensation.

How could she cling to him like this? Gods, did she feel weak and unworthy!

“I missed you so much,” she confessed nervously, “and then I became angry when the time passed and you were not returning.”

“I’m lucky they don’t have lasers here,” he mumbled dryly, kissing her  _ eyes. _ “Or you would have shot me in the head, straight through your door.”

“Our door,” she murmured. They had both gotten the society-owned apartment from the lady helping the newcomers on the Green Moon.

His remark almost recreated a lost memory. Did she fire a weapon at Sandor in the life she’d forgotten, back in heaven? She might have, and the notion was mortifying. She was obviously a criminal who deserved to be banished from good society forever despite that everything she’d ever wanted was to excel in her duties. To be a good girl. An exemplary daughter.

Then, she almost wrenched herself free from his embrace, due to a sudden sting of jealousy. “Did another lady attack you in the past because you failed her trust?”

_ Did you… do you… _

Was she terribly wrong? Was she imagining things?

_ Do you love someone else? _

“I don’t  _ know _ ,” he said with  _ pain  _ in his voice, and she could identify with that very well. It was the same loss she suffered, separated from her beloved family.

Now her mother was here, but only thanks to him.

“There was someone I think,” he rasped hesitantly. “I’m sure I angered her. I somehow lost her.”

“You haven’t lost me,” Sansa blurted.

“I know,” he stopped biting her earlobes and neck and hugged her like a bear. Air was a commodity hard to come by.

“Not yet,” he stated bluntly after a while, saddening her with his pessimism.

“Laser weapons don’t exist,” Sansa stated carefully, unsure of anything.

“Sure they do,” he wouldn’t compromise. “It’s just the Green Moon telling you differently.”

“How can you know?”

“I can’t,” he admitted between kissing her eyebrows, “but your mother’s here and I’ve got a hunch that she hasn’t exactly fallen from heaven. She must have come here on purpose, looking for you. I would have done that, in her place.”

“And in your own right?” she asked weakly. Why did he abandon her for the whole day?

“I never left,” he reacted nervously.

“You didn’t forget  _ me _ ,” Sansa stated with uncertainty.

“No way,” Sandor rasped and stopped talking.

His hands were now stuck under the so-called bra. She should wear proper underwear: long-sleeved shirts and tights, but they were not available on the Green Moon.

In the alien garment supporting her breasts, her nipples hardened. To be touched there was better than letting her earlobes be sucked. Her back became stiff, her skin tingled. She was falling… or perhaps floating? Hovering, soaring, flying! Her lips parted and she waited for a kiss on her mouth, but it was bestowed on her breasts instead, replacing his fingers. A loose hand wandered to her woman’s place and it felt natural to first open her legs for him and then close them bluntly, squeezing his fingers in order to avoid the squirming sensation they were causing.

They were laying in Ygritte’s bed now.

Sansa had no recollection how they ended up there. All she knew was that she couldn’t allow their intimacy to continue much further, unable to stand the feelings it brought. So good that they were unbearable. She needed a break, time to prepare herself for this - for the awakening and the betrayal of her body, acting on its own accord.

“Hurting?” he asked cautiously.

She shook her head, unable to speak.

“It will,” he said, studying her face for reaction.

She looked into his eyes and saw emotion there, and that, by the old gods and the new, that was better than the folly of his touch. She opened her legs on purpose to see if it would be any better for her, and his breath hitched: his fingers carefully probed her woman’s place while she resisted the urge to squash his hand again and run away from the maddening, mounting joy.

But then, suddenly it was his manhood at her door, probing and  _ hurting. _

She let out a long, uncontrollable hiss of pain and he stopped.

“I told you,” he rasped.

Was that it? Was that what all men thought about on the Green Moon, regardless of marriage?

“If you do this, will I then be your wife?” she murmured with curiosity, rearranging her woman’s place near his manhood in such a way that it at least stopped hurting. “Will you think of me as yours?” Now it felt like a different finger, larger, softer and harder at the same time. She moved to feel it better and sighed with sweet pleasure.

He moaned as if she had injured him in return.

“Is that painful for you?” she asked with concern.

He laughed hoarsely, shaking his head. “Just damn fine,” he retorted. His manhood accidentally slid back to her door, and what he was doing was still good for her for a little while, but soon it turned extremely painful. She felt unnaturally stretched and almost cut in two.

“Seven holy cows,” he whined like a baby animal against her ear, barely able to speak.

Her eyes filled with warm tears. This must be the punishment for her daring. By the gods, she had sought her own pleasure for a moment rather than striving to please him as a good wife should.

A knife in her womb, moving slowly.

Then, a proper kiss finally reached her lips, and there was salt in it as well.

His poor face.

Wet.

His tears didn’t, couldn’t take away her pain, but they did something to her soul, washed over it like an unexpected balm.

She kissed him back softly, and the blade in her womb almost came to a standstill, moving only sporadically with languid, dragging slowness, until Sandor’s body first stiffened and then quieted against hers, her pain slowly disappearing.

It didn’t last very long, she tried to tell herself. She could endure it, the obligation of marriage bed, she could. There would be joy in what came before he did what men had to do.

“This is it, isn’t it?” she said, relieved, and just a little unhappy for losing a promise of pleasure for herself too soon, before the knife came.

“No, for you it’s not,” he said matter of factly.

Fast like an eagle, he put his tongue where his manhood had been.

She closed her legs, unable to stand the sensation.

“Not good?” he was very unsure. “I thought that-“

She shook her head. One touch of his tongue on her still hurting woman’s place was so overwhelming that it was unendurable at the same time. “It’s too much,” she said, unsure how to describe her experience.

He used his finger again, not inside her, not even close to her still painful door, but a little above it, and there, the sensation was finally both joyful and bearable.

“There,” she breathed out.

Her ineloquent confession seemed to have given him daring to continue.

He touched her on that spot with the precision of the non-existing maester, gazing at her with that same restless emotion she’d begun to crave and appreciate at some point of their joint wandering on the Green Moon. His scars changed shape in the scarce electric light, primitive and yellow like the full moon. She watched the play of shades on his face and lived for his touch, breathed for the grey light in his eyes, unwilling to let them go. He tried to put his finger  _ in _ , which was too painful, and she had to wriggle out. But when he kissed her once more, she accidentally spread her legs a little so that his finger reached a different point in folds. She imagined that it was his manhood and shivered unexpectedly, trembling unstoppably against him, rolling over some edge she didn’t know existed, into his waiting arms.

She was so awake, so happy. She’d never be able to catch sleep again! On the contrary, he seemed very drowsy when he hugged her strongly to himself.

“That was better, right?” he said with arrogance which offended her for some reason, but he wasn’t wrong, so she stayed silent, loving him, her dazed thoughts racing back to every moment of their first time in their marriage bed, the good and the bad.

An hour later, she was still awake and completely sleepless, basking in her new precious memories and in the constant feeling of his arms around her.

Marriage was the best thing that could ever happen to a woman and how could anyone in their right mind want to become a septa?

But after brief, and sometimes restless sleep, occasionally interrupted with loud breathing, almost snoring, Sandor’s embrace acquired a deadly calm, too immobile to be unconscious.

He never opened his eyes, never moved a muscle in his large body, but it was clear to Sansa that he was wide awake.

Was he as happy as she was so sleep began to elude him for that reason?

She hoped so. She would love to talk to him. About everything.

“Leave. Now.” He surprised her by speaking in a threateningly calm tone that matched his changed body attitude, slowly taking his arms back to himself, in a movement that looked extremely controlled.

“Go to your mother,” he advised her darkly.

“But-”

“You’ve heard me.”

She did and couldn’t believe her ears. It was just as Ygritte said, a one time experience and it was all over.

Over, over, over.

She was so stupid, remembering that marriage was different in heaven something serious, something durable that couldn’t be set aside. Something real.

She crawled out of bed and over the dusty, brownish linoleum floor filled with small holes and cuts in Ygritte’s bedroom, noticing the decay of wall paint and yellowish curtains that needed a wash, in scarce street light.

It was dark outside, no trace of light yet, despite that the hour must be close to sunrise.

And it was much less warm than normally on the Green Moon, even in the coldest part of the night, in the dark before dawn, or maybe she only felt that way because she was undeservingly banished from Sandor’s arms.

Naked from the waist down, she sat in a cobweb infested corner and hugged her legs. Burying her face behind her knees, she closed her eyes and refused to cry.

In the silence that followed she could hear him breathing.

Suddenly, she hated the sound and him. She wouldn’t listen to his offensive snorting anymore and would never see him again. Maybe she would dance to forget. People would cheer for her because she was beautiful even if she did unworthy art dance.

With her head held up high, she rose from her misery and headed towards the door. But then, in her pride, and righteous anger, the gods decided to humiliate her once more as if what Sandor had done wasn’t enough.

She toppled over Ygritte’s shabby curtain, falling like a toddler learning to walk, scratching her right knee, earning a silly, bleeding wound for the stupid, naive girl.

The undignified position on all fours in which she ended up made her look back at Sandor, before she could get up and storm out as was her intention, to preserve at least a tiny bit of her pride.

He was sprawled on his stomach like a giant sack of barley, his face pressed into the mattress. His outstretched arms grasped hard the heavy, metal frame, one on each side.

Ygritte must have gotten that bed from the hospital, Sansa realised, studying its looks for the first time, not having noticed at all how bare and inhospitable it was while she thought of it as her marriage bed.

Sandor continued immobile, and his breath sounded strangely shallow now. Barely audible and devoid of his usual, somewhat pushy, and at best self-assured attitude.

Belatedly, she noticed that his hands were shaking as when he had made holes in masonry the day before. 

“Are you unwell?” she couldn’t help asking.

No answer came, no cold command to leave. He looked more tense than ever, bent over himself and his trouble.

His right hand squashed a sizeable portion of the bed frame into a myriad tiny shards, splinters and pieces. The structure collapsed under him. He let out a snort, sounding a bit more like himself and rolled away from his mess.

But than, without any warning, faster than a burning plasma beam, he leapt out of the ruin he created and grabbed her by the shoulders. Pinning her to a wall with his torso, he pressed a sharp shard of the bed frame on her neck, laughing like a lunatic.

“You should have left,” he rasped cruelly, but what he said completely contrasted his tone. “I gave you a chance, did I not? But little birds don’t listen to reason, do they? They’re just twittering stupidly.”

He pressed her forehead into her shoulder. His breath turned into solid, slow hissing. The cutting metal didn’t move an inch on her skin, and his whole body felt like a mountain of tense, and yet immobile nerves against hers.

Just like when he was hugging her with what she thought was extreme calm for at least an hour, before making her his wife.

Sansa became possessed by a terrible doubt that caused her ineffable, paralysing fear for him.

But also gave her unfounded hope for the two of them.

“Have you been unwell from the start?” she asked nervously. “From before we… Why not say anything? I… I would understand.”

He dropped the piece of bed frame he had used to assault her as if it was now burning his hands. Unceremoniously, he pushed her away. Then, he pressed both hands to the wall, and was about to break it, she knew.

She remembered something important.

She would often start singing under her voice when she became lost in thought about something that she couldn’t take off her mind, like her terrible evening at work. All her siblings laughed at her for the subconscious habit.

“Was I humming before you took me to bed?”

He didn’t answer, maybe he couldn’t answer. Out of the blue, he snarled at the wall like a wild, ferocious animal and began punching it like a true beast.

Instinctively, she grabbed one of his arms to stop him. It was a poor decision. He pushed her away rudely and returned his attention to the masonry, roaring every now and then at the peeling paint and mortar, not even looking at how she fared.

She had nearly hit the opposite wall from the force he used to sweep her way.

He was dangerous.

He was ill and she couldn’t help him. No one could. Maesters didn’t exist, and doctors on the Green Moon were not skilled enough to offer a cure.

She had to leave.

Cold sweat beaded on her back and for a moment she was afraid for her life.

“Go,” he urged her, so he still was paying some attention to her. “Find help. For fuck’s sake call that Baelish guy if you have to. Stay  _ away _ ,” he closed his eyes. “I can’t blame you for being unable to sing properly, can I?” he whispered hoarsely with his eyes squeezed tight, his face a grimace of pain. “Who would?”

His suffering murdered all her fears in one gigantic blow.

Her guts went to him, not only her heart. She forgot that he probably  _ was _ dangerous and that she might have good reasons to fear for her life when he turned unstoppably aggressive.

A long, rebel note of a proper song and not a mere murmur left her chest, first weak and than stronger. Then one more, and then another. Finally, the whole melody was there, in her head, in the air, in Ygritte’s appartment, and she could repeat it louder: the mighty and noble composition about pilots who had gone to fly against the enemy in small shuttles, praying to the Mother above to save them.

His eyes opened, widened. His face lost some of its tension and his blows some of their force, but he still continued breaking that wall. Only occasionally he hugged himself with shaking hands and paused in his appetite for destruction.

“Don’t stop,” he pleaded at one point, and she obliged, repeating the song, unable to think of a different one quick enough.

“It has never been this painful, the bugs in my veins,” he spoke darkly.  “Let them doctors inject me with something. Let them cut my brain out if they have to, to see what’s in it.”

“Why would they possibly do something like that? Maesters… no,  _ doctors  _ cure people.”

“When cure exists,” he countered her. “They’ll have to kill me, I think,” he said stubbornly. “If not now, soon. I don’t care about old walls and robots, but I can’t stand the thought of hurting you.”

Robots didn’t exist either, but he seemed to determine to remember all such wildly fantastic things.

“You must care for your own life.”

“Maybe,” he admitted. “On some days. On others I don’t give a damn.”

“Well today you do,” she was adamant. How could he be so pessimistic?

He was stark naked, and she would indulge in finding him beautiful, if he wasn’t ill, poor and suffering. And still violent. Gods, did she have to help him! As much if not more than she had to help herself. He had no one else, and she wanted him, not anyone else.

She would give him copiously the solace of her voice. 

Humming some more in order not to repeat the Mother’s song three times, eventually she began the  _ Ballad of the Six Wolves, _ a sad song from her lost homeland about four brothers and two sisters. They loved each other and became separated for years, losing their parents to adverse fate and injustice of men. But in the end the children met again, the wolves returned. If they existed, she would have a natural predilection for wolf-ships, she concluded. Because not even the mighty dragons were as tenacious and sharp

Sandor’s blows finally lost all their force. His hands were bleeding.

It was his turn to curl up in a dusty corner and surprise her by wrapping himself in a curtain to cover his modesty. Not that she had even looked at  _ those _ parts since he turned violent.

Or maybe a little.

At a safe and prudent distance from her, he shivered like a dog shaking off the excess of water after bathing. 

“They’ve got to kill me,” he murmured with conviction. “The bugs are getting to me. Nothing can stop them. Not even you,” he looked at her with longing that matched hers, eyes large and grey. “They’ve got to put me down before it’s too late.”

“It can’t be too late,” Sansa affirmed vehemently. “We are going to see Sam right now.

“Sam. Who’s that? He’ll kick us out and curse us for waking him this early.”

Emboldened by his calmer state and relative surrender to her will, she dared approach him, embrace him and help him up on his feet, always humming in-between words.

“You’ve been very rude to him,” she admonished Sandor lovingly, ushering him out of the apartment. “You ought to treat him with more respect.”

“You mean the fatty?” he asked with almost certainly  _ feigned  _ indifference, but putting a good show of it. “He’s alright.”

“You’ll be fine as well, my love,” she breathed out with emotion. “You will see. You must be.”

The look in his eyes was a priceless jewel, reducing to tatters the embarrassment she already felt for spilling out her confession of love.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading )))

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading.
> 
> Feedback is welcome.


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